Windows 7 Stuck up on first Startup Screen.

[DigitalTom]

Windows 7 Stuck on first Startup Screen.

Hi, new to the forums so thourght i would give it a go ! here goes...

I installed windows 7 x86 (32 bit) on my acer aspire 6935G yesterday (03/11/09). I had it working perfectly, all drivers found and installed and everything was functioning perfectly. Today (04/11/09) i have used my laptop around in the morning, lunch and evening three times. The first time in the evening i installed NOD32 antivirus, was working fine. I later on started up my laptop and was working fine i was showing a friend how speedy my computer now was and decided i would like to try find out how fast the laptop would bootup so i went on Start->Restart the laptop turned off normally but then when it started back up it froze on the first screen that came up.

The screen is the normal "Acer, Empowering Technology" and at the bottom it says "Press F2 to start setup" the laptop freezes on this screen and does not continue through startup, im not sure if the laptop actually freezes because you can press caps lock and it turn the light on and off at the top near the power button to show whether caps lock is on or not. The laptop will just stay on this screen until restarted but freezes after 1-15 mins as capslock light will then not work. I then tried pressing F2 to see if that would work at all and then the laptop will freeze after a minute and pressing caps lock will no longer turn the light on and off.

This problem persists and will not go past this screen when i turn the laptop on. The thing that bugs me the most is that i cannot access anything on the laptop so cannot fiddle around and try find out what the problem is myself or even stumble across it with pure luck as nothing is actually working.

The laptop does not have any data on as it was a clean install (all partitions removed) that would be lost so any means of getting this laptop running again as soon as possible would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much and i appreciate any time helping me on this, Tom.

If this is in the wrong section please forgive me and moving the post would be a great help! Thanks !

 

[DarkXeno]

Ok try this, take the battery out of the laptop and unplug it from the wall. turn the laptop back over and press the power button for 10 seconds. Then plug the AC cord back in and try to boot with out the battery.

Once the machine is up and running I would check to see if there is a newer bios for the laptop.

 

[DigitalTom]

Hi Darkxeno, thanks for the fast response i have just tried your idea now, the first time i removed battery and ac lead and held button for 10 seconds plugged back in then started, got the same screen/problem.

Tried again for 30 seconds, got the same screen/problem.

any other ideas ? :S

Thanks, Tom.

 

[DarkXeno]

I know you havent had any problems before this but it might be a bad hardware
(IE ram).
its odd to see a system hang right after the bios check.

 

[DigitalTom]

I thourght of this myself and took my 2x2gb pieces of ram out found out which was the primary slot by trial and error( i.e putting in one slot see if it came onto the screen) found the primary slot so put the ram in started it up, came to the same screen, tried the other piece of ram, started it up, came to the same screen.

This showed that either both pieces of ram are either working or as the problem is still persiting are broken.. but if both were broken would it even start at all?

I have a perfectly working piece of PC2 ram (2gb) in my draw but the ram i currently have is PC3 would the PC2 work still? as i could then use the PC2 piece insted of both others and see if that works?

I also wondered that i had been using the computer perfectly about 2 minutes before hand and then it suddenly fried a piece of hardware when i click restart?


Thanks, Tom.

 

[DarkXeno]

Anything is possible, since that worked i would try to boot off the win 7 dvd and see if you can run a recovery setup and see if that works for you.

 

[DigitalTom]

Hi darkxeno, i have tried starting the computer with and without the windows 7 disc in, the computer still stops/freezes on the same first screen and doesn't seem to get anywhere. I would try different methods of gettting it to work if there were any i know, as it only goes to the first startup screen and that has two options on it, (ie wait or press F2 then wait) i don't know anything about the problem or how to fix it.

Any other ideas ?

thanks very much, Tom.

 

[DarkXeno]

Ok when the computer boots try to get into bios the F2 button. then rest the machine to defaults and see if it boots then.

 

[DigitalTom]

I have tried this many times, where it says "Press F2 to start setup" changes to "Please Wait ..." and then freezes up, this dosen't seem to change at all and continues freezing when trying to enter setup.

Basically i have two options ( wait for it to fail loading or press F2 to try enter setup and freeze.) Both options lead to a frozen computer/nothing happening.

Thanks, Tom.

 

[DigitalTom]

Any ideas anyone ? Really need to get this fixed as fast as possible!

Thanks in advance.!

 

[DigitalTom]

pleasseee help!

 

[DarkXeno]

Hi Tom, I hate to say but right now I'm stumped on whats going on.

Can you check that the cpu fan is spinning and everything is seated tight, ram hard drive and that there are no disk in any drive and nothing else pluged in USB.
Id let it sit for about 15 minutes and see if it boots.

 

[DigitalTom]

Pressing CTRL + F10 does not bring up Bios

Something i have found out is that when i press CTRL + ALT + ESC as soon as i press the button to start the computer it shows some more data :

InsydeH20 Version : V1.04
BIOS Buile Date : 07/25/2008

System Memory Speed : 800 MHz

Processor Type : Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU P8400 @ 2.26GHZ

Channel 0 Master : WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0
Channel 0 Slave : Optiarc BD ROM BC-5500S

Then at the bottom left appears "Press F2 to enter setup", this still freezes if left or if F2 is pressed , CTRL + F10 or CTRL + ALT + ESC doesn't do anymore either.
This is like the same screen i had before but instead of the Acer logo in the middle there is the above data.

Doing what you said above DarkXeno doesn't seem to sort anything, it all seems to be working perfectly(hardware) . Hope this helps ?

 

[DigitalTom]

If i remove the hard drive and stuff boot up the computer it goes onto the same page and still does the same thing such as freezing and all the above. This could mean something to do with the bios on the computer itself ?

Tom.

 

[DarkXeno]

Yes that could mean that there is something wrong with the bios or motherboard on the laptop, never a good sign.

 

[DigitalTom]

is there anyway to re-install the bios ?

 

[DarkXeno]

Im not sure, but what you can try to do is to "reset" the bios by removing the bios battery or using the pin jumper to do so. For this your going to need to check your Mobo manual or check the manufators web site. When doing this on a laptop I suggest to removed all items battery, HD, ram, any USB items and the cd drive if you can. Before doing this try to removed battery, hard drive any usb item and one stick of ram and see if it boots that way. If not then check into the reset.

 

[DigitalTom]

this sounds pretty tricky, also as a laptop its quite fiddly looking around :/ You think this would be the answer to the problems ?

 

[DarkXeno]

When i get a chance I will look around Google and see if this has happened a lot to your model laptop not very sure you might want to try and see what comes up.

 

[DigitalTom]

Sent the laptop to acer to see what they think of it (13th November), from forum posts on the internet by the sounds of it their customer service is shocking...

Fingers Crossed.

Tom