[nanls]

Our AMD Athalon 64x3 Dual Core 4200 with 2048 mb of memory and 250 Gig of hard drive has a problem when we start it. It goes to the black screen with all this writing and down at the bottom it says to click on F1 for set up or f2 ........we click on f2 and we get into the normal screen and it works fine from then on. Any ideas what is happening. We have spent time with HP tech help today and they finally gave up and said a supervisor would be calling us.

Any ideas of what is wrong..........we have only had it since August of 06 so under warranty.

We could probably live with this problem but still would like it to go back to working normally.

Thanks
Nancy

 

[kiwiguy]

From your description it appears to be dropping into the BIOS setup screen, which may indicate a problem with the motherboard (possibly the CMOS battery)

When it does get into Windows, is the date and time still correct?

 

[Rich-M]

Sounds like the mbr is messed up..why not boot to Xp cd choose "R" for repair and run first "fixmbr" and then "fixboot"

 

[Bob Cerelli]

From your first post it sounds like the computer boots just fine after the BIOS screen. If that is correct then XP and the hard drive are just fine. Otherwise it wouldn't boot at all.

It is is under warranty I would take it. Like kiwiguy mentioned, typically this is due to a defective motherboard. And if the battery is dead, I would still want to know what caused it to drain so quickly. Back up anything since August that you want to keep.

 

[nanls]

Yes, the time and date are correct all the time..........I even made sure not to get the time from the Internet.

Will study all the ideas posted on here. We are waiting to hear from a supervisor from HP...........they are suppose to call us in the next day or so.

Thanks for your help and ideas. Will post the outcome to this problem as soon as we know something.

Thanks
Nancy

 

[techkid]

When it comes up with that message, does it say anything indicating an error?

I attached to the message a shot of what a "typical" POST (Power On Self Test, checks RAM, hard drives and all that) should be. I put quotes aroung typical, since I am using a program called Virtual PC to mimic what the POST does, but at least you get the gist of it.

 

[Rich-M]

Having reread this I have had this on Dells where they don't pick up hard drive changes for some reason and get confused about the boot drive so they keep requiring to enter setup or push an f-key to continue. I would reset the bios to optimum defaults save (F10) and see if this doesn't go away.

 

[nanls]

Thank you for all the replies........have been busy and not able to get back to trying the ideas mentioned on here.

Hp was supposed to get back to us.......they told us a supervisor would be contacting us in 36 hours or less and it seems that time has passed. We will have to call them again..........will let you know if we get this problem resolved.

Happy New Year
Nancy

 

[nanls]

Our HP supervisor has not called back yet.........so guess we will have to call HP again. In the meantime this is what is on the black screen when it stops and asks us to hit F1 or F2.
I have ran Scan Disk but it still doesn't start right .........safe mode won't work. I am curious to what that statment Floppy disk(s) fail (80)..........is there a problem there? There is no floppy disk in this computer.

Thanks for any ideas.

Copyright 2006 by Hewlett Packard.
Rev 307
Main Processor: AMD Athalon (tm) 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4200 +
Memory testing 2030592K O.K.. + 64M shared memory

Cpul2 Cache Size 512 K x 2
System Bio's Shadow Status: Shadowed
System Video Bios Shadow Status : Shadowed
UMB Upper limit segment Address F000ff
PS/2 mouse initialization Status : Plugged
First Channel Device 0: None
First Channel Device 1: None
Second Channel Device 0: TsstcorpCD/DVW Ts-H6522 0603
Second Channel Device 1: None
Third Channel Device 0: WDC WD2500JS-60NCBl 10.02E02
Fourth Channel device O: None
Fifth Channel Device 0 : None
Sixth Channel Device 0: None

Floppy Disk (s) fail (80)

Press <F1> for setup, <F2> to continue

08/02/2006-C51/MCP51-A8M2N-LA-00

 

[Bob Cerelli]

This is new information about the floppy disk fail error. Was this information give to HP?

If you go into the computer's BIOS, can you remove any addition of a floppy disk drive.

 

[nanls]

Yes, I tried to tell HP about this floppy disk failure but was ignored I thought. I had a huge problem understanding the technician because of language problems.

I do a lot of volunteer computer help but not the technical stuff........so I am at a loss about going into the bios like you said.

Thanks
Nancy

 

[Bob Cerelli]

Yep that is getting to be more and more of a problem these days.

To get to the BIOS setup, see if there is screen showing the key just as you boot. Typically it is something like pressing the Del, F2 or ESC key.

 

[nanls]

I tried what you said and got to a screen that says at the top Phoenix-Award Bios Cmos Setup Utility and then a row that says Main/Advanced/Power, Boot Exit is that what you mean by getting into the bios?

Nancy

 

[Bob Cerelli]

Yes, that exactly it.

Now look to see if there is a floppy drive listed in there even though you don't have one in the computer. If so, remove it and reboot.

 

[nanls]

I did find that under the main part that there is a Floppy Diskette A 1.44 MB 3.5 listed but how do I get rid of it.

Thanks
Nancy

 

[Bob Cerelli]

Is there an option to change it to none.

 

[nanls]

No I can't find an option to shut it off.........but since this is all new to me maybe I dont' look in the right place.

Nancy

 

[nanls]

We solved the problem.........found the floppy disk drive in CMOS Utility and disabled it.......whew that was scary stuff for us to do.......but it's working fine now. Just curious why did that happen though........it worked fine in August when we bought this computer.

Thanks so much for your help..........we are so excited that we fixed it by ourselves.......don't know why HP could help us figure that out though.......we are so glad we don't have to call them back.

Thank you once again and Happy New Year!
Nancy

 

[Bob Cerelli]

I'm glad that the suggestion to disable the floppy drive in CMOS solved the problem.