An Unusual Boot Problem

[jindalily]

I have an HP Pavillion dv6119us with XP Media Center. What happens is, 4/5 times when I try to boot it, the power light goes on but nothing is displayed on the screen, not even the BIOS boot screen. After a few seconds the power light goes off, then after another second it comes back on again and cycles through the same process. After a couple of tries the computer boots, but this happens when the computer comes out of Standby/Hibernation, so I lose all my unsaved work if my computer goes in to either state. I looked around forums and support sites for a symptom similar to this but with no luck. If anyone has any idea what the issue may be, I would greatly appreciate any information.

[fwilson]

jindalily,

After the system comes up and has not entered standby is it stable?

-Fred

[jindalily]

Yes, I don't have any issues once It has booted, or once the BIOS boot screen is displayed. Unless I go in to standby of hibernation of course. I ran a memory diagnostic to see if anything came up but it seems to be clean.

[jindalily]

Also tried flashing the BIOS.

[fwilson]

jindalily,

Does this machine have on board video or a card?  This sounds similar to a problem I encountered that magically went away when I changed out the video card.  It does not sound like drivers as you say the BIOS screen does not even come up.

I you had service center I would suggest you put the post card in and see where it is hanging.  That would give us a clue as to what is wrong.

-Fred

[jindalily]

It's a laptop with shared video memory, so it's not the video memory. The line between an on-board card and non-on-board card gets rather fuzzy for laptops to me, maybe you can tell from the technical specs.

[fwilson]

jindalily,

It's pretty much all on-board for laptops.

Try disabling the hibernate and power down HD in power management when plugged into outlet power.  If you run it that way and power down normally does the startup problem persist? 

-Fred 

 

[jindalily]

It does, unfortunately. I thought it was an OS issue too at first but even if the pc doesn't recognize the HD it should still show the BIOS boot screen, so I was leaning towards a hardware/firmware problem. One weird thing though, when windows goes in to hibernation and resumes from that, it shows a "Recovering from hibernation" screen with a status bar on the bottom, but this only shows when the computer miraculously boots successfully on the first try. Otherwise, if I either power down the PC since it's obviously not booting correctly or the computer goes through the cycle of "try to boot for about 20 seconds and auto power-down then try again" on its own, that screen doesn't show. Does windows or maybe some HP software component produce some sort of hardware status indexing in storage that the PC attempts to read before displaying the BIOS, and because there's some corruption in that indexing the computer bombs out? On the other hand if that's the case the computer should successfully boot on the second try when the "indexing" is deleted due to a failed boot, but sometimes I have to try 10-20 times before it successfully boots. Man, this is confusing.

[fwilson]

jindalily,

I have to agree about the possible hardware/firmware issue. You might try disabling the ACPI in the BIOS or any other power management options you may see and see if that helps.  That's about the only thing I can think of offhand. 

Have you contacted HP about this?  They have good support once you get past the level 1 guys.

-Fred

[colinc]

jindalily,

Some food for thought that may help to isolate the problem based on my experiences supporting XP users with hibernation issues. All or none of this may apply to your situation, but it is worth a shot.

How much RAM is installed in the notebook? There is a known issue with XP and hibernation on some systems with more than 2GB of RAM. Microsoft has a hotfix for the issue, but it is not available via Windows Update. It is on the MS support site under KB909095. It may be worth trying.

Also, I have seen systems that have corrupted hiberfiles. You can effectively clear up that problem by:
+disable hibernation
+reboot
+run chkdsk /F (requires reboot)
+reenable hibernation
+reboot

This basically deletes the hiberfile, clears up any errors in the filesystem, and creates a new hiberfile. It may be worth trying before going the firmware/hardware route.

-Colin

[jindalily]

Sorry for the late reply, been busy for the past few days.

Long story short, I tried colinc's method but unfortunately with no luck. It may have helped somewhat though, now it only fails to boot 1/2 rather than 3/4 of the time. The notebook only has 1GB of RAM, so unfortunately it's not the RAM related issue.

I may try out messing around with the BIOS settings. This model does seem to use some unusual ACPI settings. When I was trying to install Linux on this system the only way I could get any build to boot was with the -noacpi flag.

[fwilson]

jindalily,

Please let us know how the BIOS settings change the behavior.

-Fred

[colinc]

Just brainstorming here... if the problem has not been resolved by any specific BIOS settings changes. 

Have you tried clearing the NVRAM? It is possible that some funky or corrupted state data may have gotten stuck in there. I have successfully repaired a few notebooks (and desktops) in the past by clearning the NVRAM. All of which exhibited some form of strange and inconsistent boot and power management related problems.

<WARNING>
If you are not comfortable opening up your notebook and working on the guts, then stop right here. If the notebook is still under warranty, then stop right here. This procedure requires you to work inside the notebook, which could result in permanent damage to the hardware if done incorrectly. If you are not comfortable, I would seek professional assistance from an authorized repair center. This one is fairly simple as it is done from the memory module cover on the bottom, so you don't need to get your hands too dirty. I hereby release all liability if you brick your notebook. 

If you are comfortable, and accept the possibility that you could permanently damage the system, then you will need to download the service manual for your notebook series
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01035677.pdf

Make sure you are in a clean and static free environment.

Refer to section '5.7 RTC Battery' and follow all of the instructions for preparing the notebook for disassembly.

Basically, you just want to disconnect the battery cable. Then you want to short the two pins on the battery connector on the motherboard. Use a paperclip or the tip of a non-magnetic screwdriver. DO NOT SHORT THE PINS ON THE BATTERY ITSELF!!! 

Then, reconnect the battery cable and complete the reassembly.

On first boot, you will need to go into BIOS and reload the setup defaults, as well as the system time, and any other customizations you have made (ie boot order, etc).


If you are uncomfortable with any of that procedure, then please do not attempt. In any case, we would like to know the outcome of your efforts.