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Dell Optiplex 740 will not let me into setup, bios, nor will it load into Windows. Just goes to a black screen.
So, this desktop computer worked just fine last week. But today, it turns on, and the little splash screen with the progress bar comes up. And once the bar hits 100%, it hangs there for 45 seconds before it jumps to the screen with the blinking cursor for about 2 seconds, and then it jumps to a completely black screen and does nothing - no matter how long you wait.
I removed all peripheral devices other than the USB Keyboard & Mouse (including printers, network cables, etc.), and tried it again, and the situation remains unchanged.
If you press F2 to go into setup, it says "entering setup" but it never does. If you hit F12 to enter the boot menu, it just beeps at you and doesn't do anything. If you try using F8 to go into safe mode, it yet again does absolutely nothing. It will also not automatically boot from CDs in it's current state.
Any suggestions? Let me know if you need any more information.
aptek
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January 9th, 2010 15:00
Sounds like it could be a bad hard drive. Try disconnecting it, and see if it gets past the boot screen.
RoHe
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January 9th, 2010 20:00
Try clearing NVRAM (resettting bios to factory defaults).
Power off and unplug. Press/hold power button on tower for ~15 sec.
Open the case and remove the motherboard battery. Press/hold power button again for ~30 sec.
Reinstall the battery (right-side-up!) and see if it boots with only mouse, monitor and keyboard attached.
Ron
Runkster
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July 20th, 2011 11:00
Scratch that..problem returned after about a day...seems to be happening primarily when doing a warm reboot.
speedstep
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July 20th, 2011 11:00
Take some memory out.
Disconnect all drives.
Runkster
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July 20th, 2011 11:00
I had the same problem with reboots and system bios going to a blank screen with a blinking cursor and performed the BIOS reset as RoHe had suggested. the next time I booted the system I received a "system battery voltage low" error. I replaced the 2032 CMOS/BIOS battery on the motherboard and have not had any issues since.
Runkster
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July 20th, 2011 12:00
it turned out to be a problem with intermittent recognition of the HD
speedstep
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July 20th, 2011 12:00
Then perhaps its time to replace the drive.