BIOS screen staying on for too long?

tvout · 05-10-2008, 12:34

Hi all,
I'm currently sorting out a friend's PC, an old Packard Bell P4 which had a HD failure. I got the HD working again by replacing the logic board from a matching HD. All seems fine, I was able to connect the HD up by USB to back up all the content but when I have it back in the PC I noticed the BIOS screen that says 'Packard Bell F2 - Setup' etc. seems to stay on for about 20 seconds. Surely that's not right, or have I forgotten what older machines are like..?

I've cleared CMOS and put changed all the settings etc. It's got quick boot enabled and detects drives ok.

I can only think it's maybe RAM or the video card causing it to be slow?

My intention is to update the BIOS (when I can find a floppy disk - haven't got a USB disk to boot and don't want to waste a CD-R).

Any thoughts?

Graham M · 05-10-2008, 12:36

I have some "old" P4s around and some even older and they don't stay on for that long, I'm thinking its probably having troule POSTing but getting there eventually, possibly some faulty hardware, could be the logic board and the disk aren't completely compatible, are they identical revision numbers?

AbyssUnderground · 05-10-2008, 12:48

Some machines have a thing called "quiet boot" where you see a logo screen instead of somewhat useless text to most people. The 20 seconds will be a BIOS period, but it could well be having problems. TAB usually turns it to normal so you can diagnose, otherwise turn off quiet boot in the BIOS.

05-10-2008, 12:49

Do you have anything connected to the PC like a USB hub? If so, unplug it and try again.

05-10-2008, 12:56

20 seconds is not to long imo

If your getting "Full screen logo" try pressing the tab key or turn it off

tvout · 05-10-2008, 13:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham M

I have some "old" P4s around and some even older and they don't stay on for that long, I'm thinking its probably having troule POSTing but getting there eventually, possibly some faulty hardware, could be the logic board and the disk aren't completely compatible, are they identical revision numbers?

That is something I wondered about - the hard drives did have a few slight differences, the majority of numbers matched, the dates were only a few months apart. I did worry me that in the boot list it just had IDE-0 and not the HDD model.
It boots up into Safe mode fine but blue screens when going into Windows as the desktop loads. I was going to disable start up items but am running a fresh chkdsk now, already a few index entries have been deleted...

Chicken · 05-10-2008, 13:32

Tried it without the hard drive connected? Does it still pause?

Graham M · 05-10-2008, 15:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by tvout

I did worry me that in the boot list it just had IDE-0 and not the HDD model.

IMO that would worry me quite a lot and I would not trust the integrity of the drive, if I were you I'd back the data up and swap the logic board back to the donor disk and start from scratch.

tvout · 06-10-2008, 10:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham M

IMO that would worry me quite a lot and I would not trust the integrity of the drive, if I were you I'd back the data up and swap the logic board back to the donor disk and start from scratch.

Yup, done that and come up with something else odd. When I put the logic board back on the donor disk and tried booting from that - same thing with the BIOS but when I went into the BIOS and got it to pick up the HD it saw it as a WD200SEB (20GB) instead of what the drive was, WD400EB...

Both HDs are 40GB ones, the guy I bought it from tested it for a minute and said it was being recognised but didn't seem to be working properly.

With the logic board off the donor drive and on my failed drive it was seen in the BIOS as the WD400EB with the firmware as stated on the failed disk itself.

I'm not confused as to why using the same logic board on two different WD400 drives gets different results in the BIOS...

My thoughts so far are:

1) The donor drive had already had the logic board swapped, maybe with a 20GB WD200?
2) The donor drive has a mechanical or otherwise fault which is misrepresenting the true number of heads and cylinders etc and making it appear as 20GB?

With both drives using the working logic board, the BIOS sticks for about 20 seconds. When I tried a Maxtor 20GB drive, the BIOS screen appeared for a second, followed by POST and was like normal...

Basically, it looks like I have two duff WD400 40GB WD drives...

I've taken an image anyway (thankfully the logic board fix was enough to get the data off - 27GB). I'll just have to get them to fork out for a new drive and image the old one back on it.