Booting error... what should I do?

TheSonicRetard

My PC has been having the weirdest error as of late. Whenever it's started up, or even restarted, it'll take several attempts to get the thing to even turn on. I mean that literally - pressing the power button causes my disc drives to whir like normal, and the power light on the PC turns on, but the harddrives don't start and the monitor doesn't power on. I'm stuck at a blank screen.

It'll do this until I've tried turning it off and on several times, finally letting it stay shut off for 5 or so minutes, then turning it on again. At which point, I'll get a message at startup claiming "several BIOS posts attempts have failed - memory settings have been reset to default, press F4 to enter setup."

I enter setup, change nothing, then exit and it'll boot like normal. What the hell is going on... is my mobo dying? Occasionally, my F key on my keyboard will stop responding for no reason... is this related?

I've never encountered anything like this in my 18 or so years of computing. Any advice?

tardcore

Sounds like something is wrong with the power supply.

DeShadowC

Or it could be overheating.

redimpulse

I'm going to say PSU too. A lot of boards, when faced with not quite enough power to satisfy their needs, will turn on certain devices (fans, lights, drives) but not go any further than that to lower the risk of component failure.

Find a friend with a good working PSU and swap them, see what happens.

FatmanGames

Could also be the battery for your BIOS. Just a thought.