I Tried to use my pooter this morning, working fine last night and it tries to start up and i get a black screen with Dell on it and aprogress bar that normally whizzez up but its stuck at 50% and nowt else happens.

It has F2 steup and F12 Boot (or other way round!) in the top corner. Pressing either of the 2 keys has no effect.

It sounds like its failing the start up check thingy to me.

I have re connected all the keyboard etc at the back and its still the same.

I will next open up the case and make sure nothing has come loose ie memory, cards, cables etc - is that a good idea?

If that dont fix it what can i check next? or you got any ideas of what a common cause of it may be?

Cheers
fellas

[Edited on 15/11/07 by locoboy]

Try pressing f8 or f12 a bit earlier in the boot sequence and get into safe mode basically keeping tapping f8 a split second after switching on, or if the keys still have no effect try a get a ps2 type keyboard the old circular din type and try that, bios maybe isn't set to use usb keyboard should be though.

Rich

Its not got a USB keyboard.

I trued hitting either F2 or F12 during start up and it didnt do anything.

Will try F8 though. Thanks

I've had this a few times over the years.

Removing and reinserting all the removables inside worked on every occasion for me. Memory, processor, cards - just as you say above.

If F8 doesn't do it for you try booting it with the usb keyboard not attached or anything for that matter?

If still no go then I would probably try reseating everything.

Is it still under warranty?

Could be a shafted disk. But saying that you should be able to get into setup using F2 if you press F2 quick enough and then see if the disk is at least recognised by the bios.

No warrenty im afraid.

I was pressing the keys before i turned it on and contunued pressing whilst i turned it on.

Im going to have to spend time with the misses tonight if i cant get it fixed so all help appreciated!

press space bar twice as soon as the dell screen spears, this scips the memory check (the bar that moves along the bottom) see if it boots.

F8 won't do anything if you're not getting past the BIOS, and if F2 isn't working either then something's shafted during the BIOS process.

If reinserting all the removables doesn't work then remove the power cable and take out the button battery on the motherboard for a few minutes to reset the BIOS. Beware that you will have to redo all the setting though so if you are not familiar with BIOSes then you may want someone around who is!

If it's older it may need the Del key to get into bios. If it's getting into the Windows start then stalling it could be anything. Start in safe mode with the f8 key and look in control panel for yellow flags, driver problems etc.

I would suggest trying another stick of ram if you can borrow some off a friend. Or if you've got 2+ sticks try them on their own as ive had something similar happen to me twice both problems relating to the ram.

Right i opened the case and gave it a quick vaccum out then unplugged all the plugs and ram and refitted it all.

I then just plugged in my monitor, keyboard and mouse.

It started up no problem.

I then shut it down, plugged in printer, camera usb (no camera attached), speakers and USB cable for my broadband modem.

it froze again

I then tried them one at a time and it worked but not with the usb for the modem.

I plugged the modem in when the pc was on and it gave me a dull short beep as it recognised it and now im on line!.

Im going to shut down and restart with everything plugged in and see what happens!

Hope to see you in a minute.

YAY back online after a restart

Thanks a lot for the advice as usual a good selection of suggestions.