HP PAVILLION DV7 2180us - Wont Boot past intial "HP" screen

[darinryab]

DV7 2180us
Goes to the startup screen that has "INVENT HP" logo

Bottom left has "Press escape key for StartUp Menu"

Does nothing else after allowing it to sit for  a long period of time.

Pressing escape: Bottom left message changes to "ESC...Pause Startup" then does nothing else.

Keypad is responsive for the first few minutes as hitting NumLock does put the number lock light on and off.  Same with CapsLock. Allows me to power down using the power button.

After about 2 minutes at this screen, the number lock button will not trigger its corresponding light and the computer seems to have stalled out.  It will not allow me to power it down by hitting the power button at this point.

Tried rebooting while holding down f8, no change.

Tried taking out battery, no change.

[brokencomputer8]

my computer (hp hdx16) is doing the same thing to a T. the only thing it might have happened before this was the battery died as my wife turned it on and it was booting, and i have heard of power failure during bios updats or writing causing bios lock ups, but that is just a possible cause. anywho, in addition to what you have tried, here's what i have tried with no luck as well:

took out battery 

took out the cmos battery as well as unhooking the little power supply cord to it.

the local comp. shop told me there is a hard reset if you take the comp apart or the other possible thing is the motherboard is shot, but im hoping thats not the case. anyway, any help would be appreciated. (esp after my warranty expired 2 weeks ago and hp is charging 45 bucks just to talk to them on the phone)

[brokencomputer8]

also

disconnected HD to see if it was the problem as read that it should load to the bios if the hard drive was out it it was the cause

pulled memory out and put back in in other slot (switched slots for the two sticks)

sadly, even though this helped some in forums i found, still no fix

[brokencomputer8]

hey darin, update for you...mines back up and running:

i took out the battery (main power battery)

took out the hd

took out the memory and had only 1 stick in, tried in both slots. then put everything back together in reverse order leaving one stick out.

upon powering on i just hit f10 repeatedly and finally got to the bios menu and was able to run the hard disk check

upon doing so it said replace hard disk 1 but nonetheless when i hit escape my comp booted right up into windows like normal. so i reinstalled the other stick of memory and everything is runing great now.

not sure if it will work for you but it might.

[tummasjoensen]

I have the same problem. But thanks to you i am now running the HD test from the bios so we will see how it goes. Does anyone know how this problem occurs?

[IgorY]

@ tummasjoensen

Did you boot with hard drive disconected ?

Same problem on HP DV5-1235 DX

no solution yet

It would be nice to have HP Official tech support rep here

[wep3it]

My wife has the HP Pavilion DV7 laptop and she was copying pictures from her droid to the laptop when she got the same message on the screen. We had walked away from the computer when this occured so we don't know if it prompted for a reboot due to updates or what but we did have the ESC...Pause Startup message.

I figured it was set in the BIOS to boot to USB and was attempting to use the droid as an OS so I unplugged the USB and powered off the machine and rebooted. everything came up fine.

I suggest looking for a USB device on your machinet that it may trying to boot to and unplugging it.

[JB58]

I had same problem. Powered down, pulled battery, unplugged all USB stuff. Hit F10 went to safe startup! Then I restart an it's fine!

[KMWrites]

I don't know how to thank you -- I was so frustrated that I was going to have to take my brand new computer back and tried one more search to see if I could fix the issue myself and saw your post and the person after you. I have a wireless mouse that runs on USB and a printer and once I unplugged those, it fired up just fine. I'm still going to take it in at some point because it's a pain having to do that all the time, but at least it now boots up just fine and it works!!! Thanks so much. 

Also, I miffed -- MORE than miffed -- to not have found ONE piece of support from an HP tech on this that was easily accessible, and I am also more than miffed that after I paid $230 to Best Buy Geek Quad for Black Tie service, and called them they couldn't tell me what to do. 

What is the point in this world of buying anything when the manufacturer won't stand up, recognize the issue and fix the problem -- OR be honest and warn us that this happens when you have USB ports occupied. You know they must know this happens. So, so annoying. 

[HenryThomas]

Just bought a used DV7 (CTO build) but it is similar to the dv7-2133et that I am using here.  Same scenario, boots to HP logo with the message on the screen in the lower left to press Escape to go to setup.  Can hit other F keys, like F10 and the lower left screen will say "BIOS Setup", but nothing else happens.

Replaced CMOS battery, changed out RAM, took out the battery as well as the hard drive, did a "hard reset" but still same boot screen.  Oh, the screen also says "InsydeH20" in the lower right hand corner.

Tried another set of memory as well as another hard drive and also tried to boot to a Linux boot install CD, but still nothing past the HP screen.  The DVD drive does begin to search and read the CD, but nothing on the screen.

Starting to think the motherboard is toast, but will try one memory module at a time to see what happens.  Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Henry