PC will not boot after using In-rom diag

[TheZmurf]

Hi!
I have a HP m9367.sc PC from 2008. By mistake I started the in-rom diag yesterday from the PC startup page where you can choose to press different function keys for BIOS, boot-up order and the in-rom diag. I pressed Esc in the middle of the first test to abort it all. From that point the PC is completely unresponsive. Can´t boot into bios. Nothing! Powers on and fans running but then nothing else. Can anyone explain what happend and how to fix this?

Please help!

Regards
Mikael

[fwilson]

Mikael,

I can't explain what happened, it is not normal behavior.  ESC should simply exit the program and PC-Doctor does not change any settings or data on the system, it simply tests the hardware.

I would remove power from the unit, remove the battery and clear the CMOS with the jumper.  This should get the system booting again.

-Fred

[TheZmurf]

Hi!

YESS!!!!  That did it!!  The missing link when I tried this yesterday was that HP instructions left out removing the battery when clearing CMOS.

Thanks for more specific instructions!   

/Mikael

[fwilson]

Mikael,

Happy to help and even happier it worked. 

-Fred

[TheZmurf]

Hmm!

Thought this problem was solved but no....
Same problem occurs now and then and the same procedure fixes it. Battery out. CMOS reset. Battery back. Could PC-doctor have left something when I interrupted the process? Will try to run it again and leave it until it has finished. This is annoying!

Regards
Mikael

[fwilson]

TheZmurf,

I don't see how PC-Doctor could have "left anything behind".  It is just code that resides in an EEPROM on the motherboard. The BIOS is in control of whether the boot loader points to it or not.  You normally choose a temporary boot device by pressing F12 (on most systems) it seems as the BIOS is making that decision for you.

It is odd that a CMOS reset would "fix" it temporarily then it would revert to undesired behavior.  This points to a error in the BIOS code.

After you have got the system booting properly again I would do a BIOS update to see if that solves the problem.

-Fred