[mdlug] PC troubleshooting 101, to add a bit to what Bob and Jeff said, hope this helps!

Sat Apr 30 02:36:37 EDT 2016

As Bob pointed out more information is needed.  What hardware is in the
PC (motherboard, video card, etc.), and did you hear a beep or multiple
beeps upon power up and how many, and so on.  Do you see anything on the
monitor upon power up and if so what are the error messages?

As Jeff pointed out the CMOS battery can be easily swapped out and
checked if you have a battery tester.  If you don't have one, buy one. 
It will save you a ton of money in the long run as your kids and wife
try to throw away good batteries.  My walkman works just fine on 60%
rated batteries that my wife's stuff would no longer operate with.  This
is the battery tester I use as it is awesome:

http://www.amazon.com/ZTS-MBT-1-Multi-Battery-Tester-Battery/dp/B000FQG1XE/ref=sr_1_46?ie=UTF8&qid=1461997289&sr=8-46&keywords=battery+tester

You can also purchase the CR2032 batteries in bulk at Amazon dirt cheap
$7.00 for 20:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-CR2032-Lithium-Coin-Cell/dp/B008XBK7PG/ref=sr_1_2_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1461997424&sr=1-2&keywords=CR2032

Here are a few things I can throw on the fire.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/boards-and-kits/000005473.html

The link above shows the beep codes for Intel.

Is your PC directly connected to DTE power at an outlet?  Their supplied
power is very unstable and I hope you have a UPS between your PC and the
power grid.  I have measured fluctuation as much as 20 volts with my
multi-meter which I wrote about in my book.  Is you broadband cable
outside box properly grounded?  If not, a remote lightning strike can
take out all your TVs and computers.  Cable company technicians are not
trained and know very little.  As and electronic warfare technician I am
constantly appalled how these people have jobs and what they are doing
to cable company customers.  For example, I sunk a 8 foot copper
lightning rod into the ground to ground my cable.  A technician came to
my house and unhooked my ground to connect it to a water valve.  Said
that was what he had been trained to do.  From my book:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are experienced in electronics, you can measure what is coming
into your location by using a multimeter to find out.  The power supply
coming into your home is unstable, and the voltages can vary.  Contrary
to what your power company and government may say, the power grid is
becoming more unstable as it ages and is not upgraded.  This is not
conducive to keeping your home network / computer / electronic equipment
safe and running.  Many of the components in your computer operate at
various very low and sensitive voltages that depend on a stable 110 volt
power supply coming in.  The reason for this is that a computer has many
transformers converting the AC voltage into many low DC voltages, and
they can only do that efficiently if the AC voltage coming from your
utility company is not fluctuating.  The United States power grid is
many years old and in need of upgrade.  There will be no upgrade due to
lack of political will, the need for corporate profits, and a general
apathy by American citizens until this problem affects the general basic
needs in their homes.  Expect things to become much worse in the
future.  A good UPS is mandatory in keeping your computer's health and
will smooth out the voltages in a SBO/HCU setup to keep them protecting
your computer equipment constantly.  UPS's also protect your SBO/HCU
setup from lighting strikes; the American Power Conversion Corporation
(APC) even offers a replacement warranty if your computer equipment is
damaged when these events occur from time to time and could corrupt your
OS or destroy your computer.  If you buy an APC Smart UPS you can rig it
up to gently shutdown your SBO server(s) to keep it/them running 24/7
even if the power does not come back on in a certain amount of time.  If
you are, in any way, dependent on your SBO/HCU setup, this type of
hardware is mandatory to your survival.  (http://www.apc.com)  A few of
the Features Y Benefits of a UPS are:

  * Lifetime data recovery warranty by professional data recovery
    services in the event data is lost due to the failure of the unit
  * Back up and protect your hardware and data during power outages,
    surges and spikes.
  * Provides protection of connected equipment from power surges on the
    data lines.
  * Protect secondary electronics from surges and spikes without
    reducing battery power used to run primary electronics during an outage.
  * Gives higher application availability by correcting low and high
    voltage conditions without using the battery (option not available
    on all models).
  * Adjust the voltage points (widen or tighten the range) where your
    UPS transfers to battery to maximize useful battery life and protect
    sensitive electronics.
  * Provides temporary battery power when the utility power is out.

If it is three beeps:

Upon boot run a memory test using the RAM memory test utility found at
http://memtest.org <http://memtest.org/>.  *Don’t skip this step*! 
Memory problems can cause frustrating intermittent failures of your
system that may cost you weeks of investigation and tons of cash.  You
can download the program and burn it to a CD or install it on a USB
drive.  The best thing you can do is support this project by purchasing
a CD from their website.  The CD is self-booting, automatically running
the test software.  Plan to walk away for a few hours to let the
software thoroughly test your computer's RAM memory.  I have had
computers take an hour or more before the test software encounters a
memory problem and reports the error (sometimes locking up afterward)

Kirk A. Ellis

President and CEO, ThatCyberSecurityGuy.com, LLC

On 4/29/2016 12:00 PM, mdlug-request at mdlug.org wrote:
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>    1. After power outage desktop won't boot. (Jim Fulner)
>    2. Re: After power outage desktop won't boot. (Bob)
>    3. Re: After power outage desktop won't boot. (Jeff Hanson)
>    4. Re: After power outage desktop won't boot. (Steve Litt)
>    5. Re: After power outage desktop won't boot. (Michael ORourke)
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