HP Pavilion Slimline s5360f stuck at blue HP Invent Screen

[jjtHP]

When booting, my s5360f freezes at the blue HP Invent screen and becomes unresponsive. I've tried pressing the function keys to get the computer to load in safe mode but none of them work. The only key that does anything is the escape key, which adds some text about booting on the screen, but then freezes and doesn't boot.

Any ideas how to fix this?

John

[erico]

Hi,

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jjtHP wrote:

When booting, my s5360f freezes at the blue HP Invent screen and becomes unresponsive. I've tried pressing the function keys to get the computer to load in safe mode but none of them work. The only key that does anything is the escape key, which adds some text about booting on the screen, but then freezes and doesn't boot.

Any ideas how to fix this?

John

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Remove the memory modules and put only one module in the DIMM slot nearest the CPU. Power your PC and press the power button. If success, fantastic! If not, then do the same test with the other memory module.

Please report your results here.

Best regards,
erico

[jjtHP]

As the title says, my computer becomes completely unresponsive at the HP blue screen. Pressing escape, F9,F10, F11 all do nothing. I accidentally posted this issue in the laptop forums and they mentioned removing the ram and testing each stick to see if any were bad, but this also did not work. Prior to becoming completely unresponsive, I did get a "hard disk failure imminent" warning. Is my hard drive dead? The computer is only 13 months old (and therefore 1 month out of warranty).

Any help greatly appreciated.

- John

[Hanspuppa]

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jjtHP wrote: As the title says, my computer becomes completely unresponsive at the HP blue screen. Pressing escape, F9,F10, F11 all do nothing. I accidentally posted this issue in the laptop forums and they mentioned removing the ram and testing each stick to see if any were bad, but this also did not work. Prior to becoming completely unresponsive, I did get a "hard disk failure imminent" warning. Is my hard drive dead? The computer is only 13 months old (and therefore 1 month out of warranty).Any help greatly appreciated. - John

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Hello jjtHP, You might try disconnecting the cables from the hard drive, and see if the system will boot through the HP Logo screen into a black screen with a blinking cursor. This would assure the system has passed the POST and is searching for the operating system on the hard drive, which of course it want be able to find.

With the hard drive disconnected, you may try to see of you can enter the BIOS, just to see if the system will respond.

Since you are getting the "hard disk failure imminent" message, this might indicate the hard drive has failed. With the hard drive cables disconnected you may be able to verify the memory, processor and other components are working properly.

[justrick1701]

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jjtHP wrote:

As the title says, my computer becomes completely unresponsive at the HP blue screen. Pressing escape, F9,F10, F11 all do nothing. I accidentally posted this issue in the laptop forums and they mentioned removing the ram and testing each stick to see if any were bad, but this also did not work. Prior to becoming completely unresponsive, I did get a "hard disk failure imminent" warning. Is my hard drive dead? The computer is only 13 months old (and therefore 1 month out of warranty).

Any help greatly appreciated.

- John

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Just encountered the SAME exact problem. I tried replacing the hard drive (different brand/size); sometimes it'll boot past the splash screen, sometimes it won't. When it does, it'll freeze up somewhere along the way, with the hard drive light staying on solid (no flashing).

Desperately seeking a solution!!

[Thunder_Wizarde]

Welcome to the club.

This seems to be a REAL problem with the Pavilion s5360F even though they don't want to admit it, as many users encounter the EXACT SAME problem... always at the end of the warranty. 

There's always been problems associated with HP slimline PCs as they tend to overheat... This one doesn't seem to make exception to the rule.

I have the same issue and my warranty as expired 1month and a half ago.

I told HP support that I own 2 other HP PCs (Pavilion 9060f -Q6700 that is not a slimline and a Notebook Pavilion g7-1075dx, plus one HP OfficeJet printer. They would not even move a finger unless I spend money with them for some kind of first line support. Totally disgusting.

You can be sure that next time I buy a PC... and  I'm up to a dozen by now, it won't be an HP... anything but that, because the support doesn't worth it and they really don't mind about their returning clients.

[Debra1025]

Amazingly enough - mine did the same thing at 13 months. I paid HP support 49 to run me through the motions which they refunded when they could not fix the problem.

 l). When THAT did not work they admitted to me that the new hard drive was not compatibleand that I had to use the exact hard drive which they wanted $280 bucks for.

The hard drive straight from Seagate was $60. I asked if their hard drive was special and they admitted it was not but would come with a 90 day warranty - for the hard drive nothing else.

I returned the hard drive they sold me and theyissued a refund and I purchased a new one from Seagate which the computer will not even recognize - understand this is the EXACT same hard drive.

Now I poke around online and it seems HP slimlines have a history of motherboard failure.

Either way i am screwed since I am ONE MONTH out of warranty. They even tried to sell me a new slimline because as she put it - it would only be 320 for a new tower so why spend 280 to replace the hard drive.

At this point and after buying three HPs in 3 years for my household only to have the newest one die after one year...I am giving up on HP. I will no longer recommend them to anyone, personally or professionally.

A huge disappointment.

[alf898]

Not sure this has been discussed, nor this applies in every cases, but I thought I would share my experience with my Slimline s3600.  I bought it less than two years ago and thought it was a great little computer until it started to freeze (beep) up on boot-up about four months ago.

I bought a replacement motherboard on ebay and it only lasted less than 30 days and had similar problem.  Luckily (?) it was still under warranty so I got a replacement from the seller.  Two weeks ago this motherboard also started to freeze up ~20 minutes after booting up.  Needless to say I was ready to junk the whole thing and shop for something else, but in my last attempt to find a solution, I ran into a thread that discussed putting the motherboard in oven .

What I discovered while taking the heatsink off the GPU was that the thermal compound was badly melted and was covering many caps surrounding the chip (on both failed motherboards).  I cleaned up the stuff and bought a chip cooler (heatsink with fan) and secured it on the GPU with the standard silicon thermal paste.

Guess what, the system booted up and has been working so far (knock on wood).  I don't know how long it will last, but if it fails again, I have another spare motherboard to try.

So before you trash your motherboard, you may want to give this a try.  The chip fan and molex connectors costed about $20.

Good Luck!

[TchSterminators]

I've recently come across this issue more than a few times, and I see it's rearing it's ugly head once more! This is an issue with your BIOS. The only solution that I can recommend is resetting your CMOS. You can do this 1 of 3 ways. Since your computer won't post, you can't do it through the bios, so option one is down. Option 2 is resetting the CMOS jumper on your motherboard. Pay close attention to your motherboard.. you should see a pin that says something like 'Reset CMOS' or 'CMOS jumper' or something that common sense should be able to recognize. There should be a cover on two of the three pins x X X . Move the switch from the first two pins to the other two pins so that it looks like this X X x . Count to 10 and put the cover back on the first set of pins. Your Bios Settings should be reset. Option 3 is to open your computer and get to your motherboard. You should see something that resembles a watch battery on your motherboard. Remove this and count to 10 before placing it back EXACTLY how you found it. This should also reset your BIOS as well.

I'm not sure why this problem was so common on HP desktop models (especially my grandmother's m9000 lol which I had to fix as well) but this is the legitimate fix that I've come across. I've also heard a small number of people say that using a wired keyboard works wonders to.

Whatever works for you, I wish you good luck!

--

Christian Brown

President

Tech-Sterminators Computer Repair - Your Technology Superheroes!

{Personal Information Removed}

[teck9worx]

Fixed the problem, if your PC is freezing than it could be the dimms or a problem with your usbs being broken off inside and shorting out, the one I just repaired had a USB problem on front, I went inside and unplugged it, now it's running like a champ. Hopefully this is the problem you are having or just add it to the list of issues!