Boot up 1 beep on HP Elite SFF 8200

[mdklassen]

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@VioletHerson@  wrote:

...except, after the beep, it just hangs.  Then on the second try, it normally loads up ok without a beep.

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That is not good.  Possibly, the disk-drive is taking "longer-than-normal" to go from "off" to "ready to boot".

By the time that you restart it, the disk-drive is "fully awake", and responds in the "normal" amount of time.

How old is the disk-drive?

Tell us the detailed S.M.A.R.T. statistics for the disk-drive.

Or, try:

1. start with the computer powered-off.

2. power-on, and enter BIOS SETUP.  The disk-drive gets "extra" time to get ready-to-be-used.

3. exit from BIOS SETUP.

4. does the motherboard "beep" once, and then load Windows from the disk-drive?

[VioletHerson]

I changed the CMOS battery and still get the no-post hang and single short beep.

The system does boot normally after entering the BIOS Setup, so it does look like the HDD is not waking up quickly.

These are the detailed SMART info for the drive from SPECCY:

Manufacturer    Western Digital
Heads    16
Cylinders    243,201
Tracks    62,016,255
Sectors    3,907,024,065
SATA type    SATA-III 6.0Gb/s
Device type    Fixed
ATA Standard    ACS2
Serial Number    WD-WCC4M1957567
Firmware Version Number    80.00A80
LBA Size    48-bit LBA
Power On Count    172 times
Power On Time    180.8 days
Speed    5400 RPM
Features    S.M.A.R.T., NCQ
Max. Transfer Mode    SATA III 6.0Gb/s
Used Transfer Mode    SATA III 6.0Gb/s
Interface    SATA
Capacity    1863 GB
Real size    2,000,398,934,016 bytes
RAID Type    None
    S.M.A.R.T
        Status    Good
        Temperature    30 °C
        Temperature Range    OK (less than 50 °C)
            S.M.A.R.T attributes
                    Attribute name    Real value    Current    Worst    Threshold    Raw Value    Status
                01    Read Error Rate    0    200    200    51    0000000000    Good
                03    Spin-Up Time    4050 ms    179    170    21    0000000FD2    Good
                04    Start/Stop Count    543    100    100    0    000000021F    Good
                05    Reallocated Sectors Count    0    200    200    140    0000000000    Good
                07    Seek Error Rate    0    200    200    0    0000000000    Good
                09    Power-On Hours (POH)    180d 18h    95    95    0    00000010F2    Good
                0A    Spin Retry Count    0    100    100    0    0000000000    Good
                0B    Recalibration Retries    0    100    100    0    0000000000    Good
                0C    Device Power Cycle Count    172    100    100    0    00000000AC    Good
                C0    Power-off Retract Count    38    200    200    0    0000000026    Good
                C1    Load/Unload Cycle Count    39,207    187    187    0    0000009927    Good
                C2    Temperature    30 °C    117    108    0    000000001E    Good
                C4    Reallocation Event Count    0    200    200    0    0000000000    Good
                C5    Current Pending Sector Count    0    200    200    0    0000000000    Good
                C6    Uncorrectable Sector Count    0    200    200    0    0000000000    Good
                C7    UltraDMA CRC Error Count    0    200    200    0    0000000000    Good
                C8    Write Error Rate / Multi-Zone Error Rate    0    200    200    0    0000000000    Good

Anything else I can try?  Can I enforce a delay in start up or something?

[mdklassen]

> ... it does look like the HDD is not waking up quickly.

Agreed.

> S.M.A.R.T attributes
> Attribute name   Real value  Current  Worst  Threshold  Raw Value   Status
> 03 Spin-Up Time  4050 ms     179      170    21         0000000FD2  Good

> Can I enforce a delay in start up?

On other computers, I have seen a BIOS SETUP option to add such a delay, for exactly your situation.

I don't have your exact computer, so I cannot be sure about your BIOS.

Some BIOSes do have an option to do more-extensive "checking" of RAM, which takes extra time, before issuing the "single-beep" that precedes any booting from the disk-drive.

If it is irritating, then replacing the disk-drive by a "cloned" version is a remedy.

[VioletHerson]

Thanks! I did not spot the 4 second start up time.

I will explore the bios options.