Buddys computer wont boot past asus splash screen

Quench24

Buddy's computer won't boot past Asus splash screen. It says press del and then freezes. Any help?

TechGromit

Can he get into BIOS? See what the memory installed says in Bios, first thing I'd try is reseat the memory.

rob42

Do you get sequence of 'beeps'? The number and sequence of such 'beeps' can indicate what the issue may be.

Quench24

He is not able to get to BIOS.
He reseated memory.

I will ask if he gets beeps.

kurosaki00

Cant get to bios? Does he see the post happening at least?
Try cleaning cmos maybe or try load an OS from USB

markulous

I'd follow the suggestions here. Try swapping out RAM modules, cleaning the machine with compressed air, and maybe trying removing any storage or media from it too and see if that does anything.

Worst case you may want to try resetting or flashing the BIOS.

rob42

Quench24 wrote: »

He is not able to get to BIOS.
He reseated memory.

I will ask if he gets beeps.

Odd that he's not able to get into the BIOS as that's normally an option at the manufacturers splash screen. Even if he can't see the options it worth a try: F1, F10, F12, esc, come to mind. The Asus website should give you some insight.

It's entirely possible that the BIOS Chip is has gone bad in some way, in which case, it will need to be replaced.

What model of Asus is it?

Quench24

He only gets one beep and then a second beep they removed the ram.

markulous

Hmm... According to this, a single beep just means no keyboard detected. https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1029959

quickman007

I believe I had a similar issue with my computer (also an Asus motherboard) and connecting the keyboard to another USB port solved it for me. I had just done some work on the machine and forgot to plug it back in. Speaking of which, does your friend remember doing anything to the computer before this issue started?

Quench24

Thats obviously not it. Any other ideas how to troubleshoot this?

quickman007

Try removing the dedicated GPU if he has one and plug the monitor into the onboard display. Just ruling out things that could be broke.

rob42

Quench24 wrote: »

He only gets one beep and then a second beep they removed the ram.

The duration of the beeps is also relevant: 1 Long Beep, 1 Short Beep = (Possible) System Board Failure.

Two beeps of the same duration = No RAM Detected.

---

Edit to add...

It's a long shot, I know, but...

Is it possible that the machine has in some way been infected with malicious code (A.K.A a Virus)?

In the past I've read about such code displaying a 'blue screen' message in order to lead anyone trying to diagnose the issue, down a bogus path. It could be possible to infect a machine with boot code the shows the user what appears to be a 'manufactures splash screen' but is in fact not the case. This would account for the lack of a 'enter BIOS setup' option.

... just a thought...

GSXR750K2

Is this by chance a new computer? Any recent upgrades? How many DIMMs? Need more info.

If new, are all parts compatible? I've recently seen two cases of new builds that used a Kaby Lake on an ASUS Z170 board and it only showed the splash screen with no access to BIOS. It's a nice Catch 22 since you need an older proc to update the BIOS to use the newer proc.

EDIT

May try one DIMM in each slot. I have a Gigabyte board over here that had a misprint in the manual...it showed when using one DIMM to put it in slot 1, but no boot, however it boots just fine when installed in slot 4.

TheFORCE

There's a few steps that need to be taken here. What has been mentioned is also valid. I'd check the below.
1. Was the PC moved recently?

2. Someone cleaned around the area?
3. Check the memory dimms.
4. Was any new hardware installed? Additional HD or something else? Maybe this caused something to unplug, maybe a connector was unplugged?
5. Can you connect an external hd or usb? Usually this will trigger the next available hardware and OS identified on bios priority list.
6. Take the harddrive and plug it to another pc and see if it is being recognized.
7. Test all the connections one by one inside the case.
8. Test the hardware in other pc's.

TechGromit

His best bet is to disconnect everything, even remove the memory except the monitor and see what error it give when booting. If it gives a memory error, you know it's at least getting that far in the boot process. If not his bios it toast. If it gets a memory error, install the memory and see if it boots to no operating system found. As it get farther in the boot process, reconnect components one at a time, to isolate the issue.