I’m having a very peculiar problem. The power went out while I was using my computer. When it came back on and I powered on, the screen stayed blank. But there was a short beep representing a succesful POST, my keyboard lock buttons flashed on like a normal boot, my video card fan spun down to idle levels, and then the monitor clicked on and windows 7 login screen appeared.
As far as I can tell, everything is running ok. My bios seems to have retained the correct settings (cpu clock is correct). One odd thing though - the repeating rate for holding a key down has gone way faster (like, if I hold down a key it would repeat 5 of those keys per second +/-, now it’s more like 15) - is that a bios function? I vaguely recall some sort of typomatic rate or something.
It just doesn’t display anything during boot process - the monitor stays in standby mode, but as far as I can tell everything seems ok. Any idea wtf happened? Should I flash my bios, or do I risk screwing something up where things seem stable now?
It’s not a BIOS problem, it’s a monitor or video card problem. First, try turning the monitor power off and back on. If that doesn’t help go into your monitor setup and reset it to factory settings.
My understanding is that once your OS boots, you are using OS drivers, not BIOS drivers to control input devices. If the keyboard is acting funny, then youre probably experiencing a hardware issue.
As far as disappearing BIOS text, well, I’m not sure. Sounds like something may have been damaged by a power surge or other power related issue when the power went on. I would not attempt a BIOS upgrade on a machine experiencing issues like this. I would just leave it as is and make frequent backups of data.
Check your windows event log. It might give you a hint as to what might have happened. If you are suddenly seeing errors from the video card then its probably a video card issue. Although, my gut tells me you have a motherboard problem. If the computer is still under any warranty I’d consider RMA’ing it.
Do you perform ‘System Restore’ backups more often than not? If so, can you ‘rollback’ to the last System Restore Point (if it is fairly recent, that is)?
The BIOS may have been reset to its defaults, and it is possible that the memory chip that stores your settings is damaged.
A lot of BIOS setups have a “quick boot” option which may be what yours is now doing. There should be some key or key combo (F1, F2, CTRL-F1, or some such) that can get you into the BIOS setup where you can change things to your liking.
The bios isn’t at defaults - if it were the clock speed on my CPU would be 3ghz and it’s not, it’s the correct speed.
I am able get into the BIOS setting screen, but I only know this because the boot process stops when I try. I can’t see it.
It’s definitely not setup to hide it - and even if it were, it displays my motherboard manufacturer’s logo during the POST process, not a no signal.
I could try, but I don’t see how it could work. System restore doesn’t affect the BIOS, only windows - and for the first 15 seconds or so during the boot, windows has nothing to do with what’s going on, it’s purely the BIOS.
Two DVI outputs on the video card, but that’s it. I could try swapping it, but that would only do anything if there were some sort of damage to that port, or if somehow the primary DVI output flipped.