Stuck on Splash Screen

[at1105]

I have an HP Pavilion p6404y with Windows 7 (64-bit) on the table. Was having performance issues and randomly rebooting before being brought in. Was told it has a brand new HDD and a fresh install of OEM Win 7 OS. First boot was slow and after Windows loaded it wanted to hang and become unresponsive. I managed to check device manager and installed programs before it finally locked up completely. All looked ok. Upon restart in Safe Mode it did the same thing. Restarted again and now it wont get past the BIOS HP splash screen. One out of every 10 times it will respond to hot keys to enter BIOS or Boot Options, etc.

Ive managed to run memory test and it passed two scans. I went a step further and pulled memory one at a time to double check and no change. Pulled the HDD and video card and even checked power supply. All are ok but nothing seems to phase it - still sticks at the splash screen. I'm leaning toward MOBO issues. What do you think?

UPDATE: I managed to reset the BIOS to default settings and cleared the CMOS jumper - no change.

 

[NYJimbo]

Open it up again and visually inspect all capacitors and let us know what you find.

 

[at1105]

Open it up again and visually inspect all capacitors and let us know what you find.

All the caps look good.

 

[cypress]

You said that you were told hard drive is New. Maybe jsut run some diagnostics on the hard drive and rule that out on your end too.

 

[katz]

How did you check the power supply? I would swap another in to see if that changes anything - but it does sound like a defective motherboard...

 

[Larry Sabo]

Boot a Linux live CD or WinPE with the HDD disconnected and see if it runs. Also check the CMOS voltage. May need a BIOS update (using a flash programmer).

 

[Frozwire]

Boot a Linux live CD or WinPE with the HDD disconnected and see if it runs.

This is worth trying. And also try to wipe the drive and do a fresh clean install of Windows as I suspect the Windows installation was not done properly before you have that laptop in your shop.

 

[frase]

Its a desktop system frozwire this model. I would remove addon cards, usb/card reader etc not needed for boot just to check if conflict is there, as in the network/wireless card. If it boots add each back one by one -could be a power issue or driver conflict. If it was mobo specific it would not have installed initially.

 

[CLC]

Did you do a bios update if possible? Maybe pull the cmos for a while first?

 

[drjones]

I'll bet bad hard drive.

Two things you could try:

1) If there's no data on the PC at all, try to reinstall windows. I'll bet it won't finish.

2) Toss another known good drive into it, install windows & see how it acts.

 

[at1105]

UPDATE:

I have pulled the HDD out and am currently doing a virus scan and will follow up with a diagnostic scan. I pulled the CMOS jumper again and cleared it. Pulled the CMOS battery and replaced it. Tested the power supply with my power supply tester - voltages are good and consistent. I pulled everything except the DVD drive and one stick of ram (alternating between sticks on failed boots shows no improvement)

Tried to run Knoppix Live but got a boot error. Went into the BIOS to change the boot order because it was trying to boot the HDD first but it doesn't register the DVD drive now. Checked all the connections and restarted it. The DVD activity light comes on when I reboot and I can hear it reading the disc but the BIOS doesnt show the DVD drive. Every other restart it will hang on the splash screen and become unresponsive just like before. Sometimes when I hit F10 to go into the BIOS it says Entering Setup... and it just hangs there.

So at this point, there is no HDD installed and all hardware has been pulled except for the absolute minimum and I'm still unable to access the BIOS 99% of the time but when I do, it doesnt recognize my optical drive in order to run anything Live to test the board. I'm scratching my head on the this one. Any ideas?

 

[Larry Sabo]

Sure sounds like a corrupted BIOS. A flash programmer is only $35 or so, and comes in real handy at times like this, if just to prove that it's not the BIOS but some other MB component. Oh, and those PSU testers are not reliable; only sure way is to swap in a known-good PSU.

 

[at1105]

The board is the Pegatron M2N78-LA. A Google search turned up an interesting slew of results. Seems this board has been problematic for many consumers.

 

[NYJimbo]

I'm scratching my head on the this one. Any ideas?

Look at how much work you are doing and ask yourself if you will make any money on it even if you can repair it. Sometimes you can't save the patient. Perhaps its time to "call it" and give the customer other options to repairing this machine.

 

[Frozwire]

Its a desktop system frozwire this model.

Yes you're right I've overlook the model. I thought it was a Pavilion Notebook. sorry

 

[at1105]

UPDATE: After testing and retesting the hardware I had no choice but to assume it was the motherboard and recommend replacement. Actually, the client ended up bringing me a 2nd HP desktop that was having the same symptoms. Opened the case and it was the same board. I guess that series of boards have reached the end of their life cycle. I found two new replacement boards (better quality) and they are working great now. Thanks for all the input guys. As always, I really appreciate it!

 

[Patriot Computers]

I recently worked on an HP desktop that was acting funky at boot up and not recognizing drives at times. It was the SATA connectors on the motherboard. There was an open slot available and installed a SATA card. Working like a charm now and everything is identified.