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My HP Pavillion entertainment PC dv2000 does not boot up.

When I press the power button it turns and reads the CD and all the lights turn up, but does not go into boot mode.

What should I do? How do I troubleshoot a PC that won't even boot.

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Does the screen turn on or show anything at all? Can you get into the BIOS, or anything? – Fake Name Feb 20 '10 at 20:49
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migrated from serverfault.com Aug 9 '09 at 6:37

This question came from our site for system administrators and desktop support professionals.

5 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

My tried and (thus far) true method is to unplug stuff until something happens. Start with the less-essentials (anything external except the monitor, including keyboard and mouse). Then move into the box and unplug things, starting up after each one to check. Be sure to unplug both power and data on each one.

  1. Floppy/memory card readers.
  2. Any case-mounted (not attached directly to the motherboard) USB plugs and audio jacks.
  3. CD/DVD ROM.
  4. Any PCI/ISA cards that aren't the video card.
  5. Non-boot hard drives.
  6. Boot hard drive.
  7. Non-CPU fans.
  8. Video Card.
  9. RAM.

If you still get no system activity after getting to the RAM, you're in pretty deep. At that point You're down to PSU, CPU, and Motherboard. Any of those can be the problem, and the best way to continue diagnosing is to swap those out for known-good parts, in that order.

Keep in mind that beeps are a form of system activity. If you are getting beeps, that is good. Figure out how many there are and in what pattern and post back here (or Google them) for more info.

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up vote 1 down vote

If there is any media in your CD/DVD drive take it out and then try booting

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up vote 1 down vote

Disconnect any attached USB devices; I've seen rogue USB devices completely defeat booting on multiple PCs.

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up vote 0 down vote

Switch off your PC,disconnect all power cables, and remove the CMOS battery. Wait at least 25 minutes for the capacitors to discharge, then reinstall the battery, reconnect the power cables, and try to switch on your PC again. (I think this will solve your problem.)

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up vote 0 down vote

Try removing the battery and power cord for about 20 mins. Then start it back up again.

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Are you an indian tech support guy? If something is truly wrong it won't help, even a bit. – the_drow May 28 '10 at 15:27
@the_drow I saw that suggestion working so many times, with many laptop. Nothing wrong to try at first this. I think is not necessary insult Indian tech guys. – Drake May 28 '10 at 15:40
30s to 1 minute sure, let the capacitors discharge, 20 minutes is ridiculous. – DHayes May 28 '10 at 16:20
@DHayes: I say 20 minutes b/c that's the length of time I left my unbootable hp dv6500 alone. Granted, I suspect that the problem in my case was more with overheating than anything else, based on repeat incidences, and that removing the battery/power cord was unnecessary. But it worked; I don't mess with solutions that work. And @the_drow: the level of my indianness and techiness is irrelevant to the value of the advice, given a vague problem. The poke at my ethnicity, and the associated implication of ignorance, is unappreciated. – Babu May 28 '10 at 22:29
If the symptoms stated here were indicative of heat, I would have let it pass, but 20m as a generic answer with no reasoning behind it is poor troubleshooting. Explain why 20m is needed as opposed to a shorter amount of time for this particular issue. – DHayes Jun 1 '10 at 13:58
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