HP 2000 laptop will not boot until ENTER or timeout

[NYJimbo]

Got a HP 2000 here running Win 7. Customer says its dead. He said it was working, turned it off last night, turned it on this morning and now nothing. Of course he didn't do anything to it, no drops, spills, not overheating. Turns out it is working but it has a weird boot issue I haven't seen before.

If you power it up you get the "Press ESC Key for Startup Menu" messages which is where you can do any number of things like esc,f1,f2,f9,10 for various boot up options like any other laptop. That goes away in about 2 seconds and then the laptop just sits there and will not do anything for about 1 minute. Timed its actually 1m5s every time. After that time it will boot normally.

If you decide to hit one of the function keys at boot the system will acknowledge your key press but then go to a blank screen and do nothing for a minute.

It turns out if you hit ENTER any time during that wait period it will go on to do whatever it should have, normal boot, BIOS page, system tests, etc, but you must hit ENTER, no other key will make it respond until the 1 minute timeout is over.

I reset the BIOS to defaults, flashed the BIOS to the latest one. Checked all BIOS boot settings including turning off any network boot options. Still does the same thing.

I disconnected the HD, DVD, keyboard, touchpad, etc just in case it was timing out on some interrupt but still doing it. Ran internal HP system checks, swapped ram with known good. Still same.

The machine works flawlessly except for that weird boot timeout issue. Device drivers show nothing weird like an bad device or missing drivers (I know its failing outside the O/S but maybe DEVICE MANAGER would give a clue).

Anyone see this sort of thing and resolve it ? It's almost like its waiting for a response like you get when it warns you windows isn't clean and it will do a system repair in 30 seconds, except this does it right after the initial start up page and there is nothing on the screen, not even a cursor or any other character.

 

[phaZed]

Maybe take a look and see if the utility partition is being booted... if so, change the boot flag to be for the Windows partition. Those recovery/utility boot partitions often run their little boot recovery program to wait for a user key-press to enter the MFG's recovery disk.

 

[NYJimbo]

Maybe take a look and see if the utility partition is being booted... if so, change the boot flag to be for the Windows partition. Those recovery/utility boot partitions often run their little boot recovery program to wait for a user key-press to enter the MFG's recovery disk.

Thanks for the reply. Just for clarification its doing it even when no HD is in place. But I took your tip and checked the HD with Easus Partition Master and its set right. I also booted with a Win 7 disk and let it do some basic repair.

But its not the HD, something else before any drive is accessed is either stopping it or its waiting for some kind of timeout. I first thought a boot device but I did every imaginable BIOS tweak plus flushed, flashed and set to default.

It could be a motherboard issue with something on the PCI bus but I cant figure it out so far.

 

[AndyM]

I know it sounds silly, but what about removing the CMOS battery? I think it's the only thing you haven't mentioned.

Andy

 

[NYJimbo]

I know it sounds silly, but what about removing the CMOS battery? I think it's the only thing you haven't mentioned.

Andy

Yes, we flushed the BIOS, reflashed and set to all defaults and then played with everthing inside the BIOS. But you're right, I should note I yanked the thing out just in case. Clock was set back to whatever their epoch is so I know that was all cleared.

I got the machine until Monday. I'm not killing myself over it but this is just a real weirdo.

 

[B Trevathan]

It turns out if you hit ENTER any time during that wait period it will go on to do whatever it should have, normal boot, BIOS page, system tests, etc, but you must hit ENTER

So the pause is at when its looking for boot devices and after the BIOS has ran POST?

Have you tried changing the boot order just to boot to C?

Have you checked the BIOS to see if it does some kind of start up check for example a BIOS virus scan?

Have you tried disabling/enabling the "Quick Boot" option?

After windows loads you're not having any port problems, all USB, eSATA,, memory card, network ports work?

Have you tried disabling any ports in BIOS?

Have you booted off different ports?

Would hooking up a external monitor show anything during the pause?

 

[NYJimbo]

So the pause is at when its looking for boot devices and after the BIOS has ran POST?

Have you tried changing the boot order just to boot to C?

Have you checked the BIOS to see if it does some kind of start up check for example a BIOS virus scan?

Have you tried disabling/enabling the "Quick Boot" option?

After windows loads you're not having any port problems, all USB, eSATA,, memory card, network ports work?

Have you tried disabling any ports in BIOS?

Have you booted off different ports?

Would hooking up a external monitor show anything during the pause?

We have tried EVERY possible change in the BIOS. I think I posted that. I think I also posted that everything works perfectly and there are no device driver issues.

As to the external video, no, nothing.

 

[SilverLeaf]

Has it always done this, or is this new? Could just be a crappy bios I guess. It almost sounds like its doing an old-school memory check at boot and not displaying the countdown on the screen, and pressing enter aborts the check...regardless of the BIOS settings.

 

[NYJimbo]

Has it always done this, or is this new? Could just be a crappy bios I guess. It almost sounds like its doing an old-school memory check at boot and not displaying the countdown on the screen, and pressing enter aborts the check...regardless of the BIOS settings.

Just started for the guy this week, its the reason he brought it in. I'm going to try a few more things tomorrow but if nothing clicks I will just charge him the diag fee and tell him he has to wait for it to boot. I will also warn him that this could be the beginning of something worse but all tests are showing the machine ok so far.