Steve’s Tech Guide

One day, after work you go to turn on your computer, because you’ve finally saved up enough money to buy that super expensive HDTV online at Amazon that’s on sale for 50% less than the list price for today only, and it comes with free shipping to boot, but you push the power button and nothing happens. You can’t believe it, your computer just seems to have stopped dead in its tracks. Nothing shows up on the display, and you don’t know what’s going on, but worst of all you have to make sure you cash in on your HDTV deal before the time runs out.

Well, what should you do first when your computer won’t even boot up? Should you try to bang on it to see if that’ll wake it up? Should you call in Geek Squad right away, and risk having them take the last $300 that you needed for your HDTV just to repair your computer? No, you should take these steps to see why your computer won’t turn on, by troubleshooting your PC, in a relatively short amount of time you should be able to figure out what went awry, and what steps you can take to fix it.

What To Do When Your Computer Won’t Boot

1. First, check your plugs and cable connections for anything that’s unplugged, or loose connections. Also check your power strip, and make sure that a breaker hasn’t been tripped in your house.
2. After you do that try booting up your computer and take note of any peculiar actions, sounds, or smells. If your computer make a variation of beeps on bootup those beeps can give you a clue on where to look next. Refer to BIOS beep codes, and they should tell you what is causing the problem.
3. Listen to the power supply to see if the fan is spinning, and if the power supply comes on. If the power supply doesn’t come on, try checking the power switch on the back of the power supply, it could’ve been flipped on accident. Now, if the power supply still doesn’t come on, try moving your computer to a different outlet. If it still doesn’t come on that is most likely your problem. You can get a multi-meter and test your power supply, try swapping it out for another one, or try the power supply in a spare computer.



4. Now, check to see if your display is working, typically if a monitor is working when you turn it on and it’s not receiving any information for your video card it will display a message similar to: “This display is working, check your cables to see if they are getting a signal”. Try using your monitor on a different computer to see if the monitor could be bad.



5. If the monitor is okay, then try using your motherboard’s built-in graphics card instead of your add-on graphics card to see if it’s the graphics card won’t let you boot up. Listen to see if your hard drive is spinning, if it is then the graphics card is probably bad, try replacing it. Also while you’re inside your case, check all the fans to make sure they’re spinning and there’s no obstructions.
6. Ground yourself and reset your BIOS by removing the CMOS battery inside your computer, wait a few minutes, and put it back in then see if your computer will boot. If not, refer to your motherboard’s manual, or computer manufacturers website for instructions on resetting the CMOS jumpers.
7. If the PC is still not booting, it may be your RAM. Try running a MemTest86 boot disk to test the RAM, typically if it’s a memory problem your motherboard should tell you with BIOS beep codes. If the memory test fails, or you can’t get it work try removing each RAM module, one at a time to see if it will boot after that. If not try replacing your RAM with known working sticks.
8. If nothing seems to be solving the problem, your motherboard or your CPU may be damaged. This is where things get a little expensive. If you have the know-how go ahead and replace your CPU, or your motherboard, at least trying swapping out a working motherboard/CPU so you can be sure. If you don’t know how to do this take it to a computer repair shop, I do not recommend Geek Squad, try to find a local shop so you can at least get a good deal on prices, and good quality work. Get a quote from a local repair shop, because it may just be worth it to buy a new PC, with the computer prices so low.
9. If the BIOS runs, yet nothing else is going on after that it’s most likely that your hard drive crashed. If you’re lucky you can recover your hard drive data.

So what’s the next steps after this? If your computer still isn’t working correctly, try booting into safe mode, and see if there are any software conflicts. If you still can’t figure it out, you’d probably just be better off reformatting your Windows drive and starting over, but make sure that your hardware isn’t causing the problems, or else reformatting your drive isn’t going to get you anywhere.