Hibernation

[Sparkyj]

I'll try to be brief and apologies if I cut accross any protocols.
Son's Uni PC, he loaded a legit copy of XP Home - everything okay until one day when he put the machine into hibernation and it won't come out. Symptoms are that on booting it appears to get past POST, the H/D cranks for about 2 seconds then the machine hangs. No screen display at all.
It doesn't boot far enough to recognise key strokes so I cant access BIOS, it won't boot from F/D or CD, I can't invoke a boot error.
I thought it could be hardware failure and removed all peripherals, replaced video card, memory, H/D with known working parts but all to no effect.
Tried M/Soft site - loads of problems with hibernation but not this one, tried XP and PC news groups, plenty of help but no solutions - in fact they referred me to you guys.
Any help would be appreciated.

[Budfred]

Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

It doesn't sound like a Hibernation problem. If you replaced the hard drive and, with it, the WinXP, the hibernation wouldn't be an issue unless it originated with the BIOS.

The first thing I would do is reset the BIOS. You can do this using the Clear CMOS jumper or you can uplug the machine, pull the battery from the motherboard, press the power switch (with the machine still unplugged), wait about 15 minutes, reinstall the battery, plug it in and try to reboot.

If that doesn't do it, come back for more ideas.... If it does do it, go into the BIOS and turn off power save functions....

[Sparkyj]

Thanks Budfred,
I had already tried to blank BIOS by removing battery, but I have also tried your method and no change.
I should have stated before that unfortunately I have no idea what the spec of this machine is other than it's a pentium II and about 3 years old.

[Budfred]

Are you sure it meets even the minimum specs required by WinXP??? I don't see how that could have damaged it at this level, but...???

Well anyway, the next step is probably to try a barebones boot. This will mean disconnecting all but the keyboard, motherboard, CPU, power, power switch, video, case speaker and all but one stick of RAM. Try booting and see if you can get into the BIOS. If not, you may simply have a dead computer, but there are still a couple of other things you can do.

Is this a brand name computer??? If so, what is the brand and model number?

[Sparkyj]

Thanks again Budfred,
Yes - I should have said - already tried a barebones boot and it did exactly the same - this partial boot then hangs.
Success........
A bit embarrassing really...I thought I'd try another barebones boot and just noticed that the CPU -one of those big buggers - Pentium II - was not fully seated, pressed it down and yes.
Thanks for your help anyway - it's much appreciated.
It just shows that you tend to look for the complicated answers and its not always the case - the fact that I was given this hibernation red herring didn't help - although when it booted it did state it was coming out of hibernation.
Thanks again.

[Budfred]

Thanks for letting me know what the story was anyway....

Also, I would check those specs for running WinXP. Usually you need a minimum of 128Mb RAM and that is extremely optimistic. 256Mb is considered more realistic as a minimum and 512 if you want to keep up with the snails....

Also, I believe 266Mhz is the minimum processor speed and it will move slow even with 300Mhz....