HP Envy Desktop won't boot

[Csboulter]

HP Envy Desktop refuses to boot to Windows. After pressing power button it tries to start, but the fan runs for a second, it makes a noise, then slowly stops booting. I've done hard resets, I've tried booting to the diagnostic screen. Really strange. After I power it on, I can hear it repeatedly try to boot, that fan runs a second, then it just stops. No HP logo. No boot screen or anything at all. Monitor controls all turn on so it's not a display issue. Any help appreciated. No idea what to do from here

[WAWood]

Desktops normally spin the fast loud for a few seconds and then it quiets down -- and may even stop spinning. This is typical behaviour.

When you try to boot into diagnostics, what happens? Can you get into the UEFI setup screens --- by pressing Del, or F11, or F2 key, repeatedly during boot?

[drthvdr666]

Nothing happens. But it does seem like it's trying to start when I tap any key or move the mouse. Its really strange. But no recovery mode or bios or anything

[drthvdr666]

Yeah no pushing f2 or any of the keys at open does nothing

[WAWood]

If you see nothing on the screen, then you can't run any diagnostics to find out what the problem is.

Even when a drive dies, there are still error messages of some form on the screen.

If there is nothing at all, what you can try is hooking up another display to your desktop -- to see if anything displays there.  If so, your monitor is bad. If not, there is nothing more you personally can do and you would then have to consider taking the PC to a local PC repair shop and paying them to diagnose it.

[drthvdr666]

Very helpful thank you. So yeah, that's been my point, I can't get to the recovery screen to diagnose anything. I did try an alternate display and it didn't do anything so I'm at a loss really and can't really do anything from here. Thing is, I'm no dummy with this stuff. I've built a few PCs myself and I'm not scared to bust it open and check it out. The other thing I'm thinking it could be is power. I ordered a new 280 watt power adapter to try that because I've read about those giving out because it's quite a power draw. It's a beast of a system and I'm honestly really disappointed considering this is barely 2 years old, I got it as a big, once in ten years purchase, top of the line as nice as I could find and literally nothing gave me any warning that anything was wrong at all. Nothing. I've had no issues up until this point. I babied it. I never downloaded anything. I mean anything. I played music, recorded music, but there was still 90% of the hard drive space available and there's no reason this should be happening. HP support is a labyrinth so Abby suggestion of who to call or a better number with someone who could help me would be awesome because it's kinda ridiculous that this is happening to such a new, high end, high spec computer. Only thing if it's not the power it's gotta be the mobo. If I'm not getting even the very first load screen or the ability to enter the bios then to me that's mobo or power. Worst case, and I could be wrong, but worst case I'm 99% sure all the components are full size, standard parts not proprietary. The ram definitely is as it was marketed that way. And from the tear down videos I've seen everything looks standard, so I'll just remove everything, buy a case, motherboard, and just build a new computer with all the parts. I'll be annoyed but whatever. Its 16gb ram, 1tb SSD, the processor was really good at the time and the graphics card is a 6gb GeForce card, none of it is at all dated. Those specs are still pretty top end and I refuse to lose all of it because one thing broke. If that means I build a whole computer out of the parts so be it. Anyway that's all. Thanks for the response if this is at all helpful or you can tell me anything else based on this id appreciate it

[WAWood]

Some HP desktops have an LED on the back near the PSU -- and that lights when the motherboard (mobo) gets power.  Does yours have that LED and is it glowing? If you have the LED and it is blinking, that means a major hardware fault in the system. And if you have the LED and it is dark, that means the mobo is bad.

Problem with these OEM PCs is that they use both proprietary mobos and components -- so it's not a simple matter of just swapping in another mobo that fits.  Also, unless MS has changed this, changing mobos will also deactivate your copy of Windows, and since this is an OEM copy, you will not be able to get another product key from HP.  So, you would have to buy and install Windows on your own.

These and other such limitations are why I never buy OEM PCs; I built my own from parts, instead.

[drthvdr666]

Right right! So, the LED on the power button comes on, then slowly dims and then turns off. No blinking. When I push it, it turns on, then stays lit for a second, then slowly dims then turns off. The weird thing is, it responds to mouse movements and keyboard presses. So, even though it's not booted, if I move the mouse, it will wake up and try to boot. Same with the keyboard. If I hit a key, it'll try to wake up. So weird. And yeah the mobo is definitely proprietary but the rest of the parts are not from what I can tell. The GPU, the ram, the SSD are all standard. And yes if I have to I'll buy another copy of Windows. Its just so high spec, if I just up and buy another computer, I'll never be able to afford the specs I had in it. And trust me, for months I had an Alienware built in my cart ready to go. Only reason I went with this is I saved so much money. I waited for prime day and they cut 700$ off and it was just too good a deal to pass up. The one I had built didn't have even close to the specs of it, but I honestly regret it now as if anything happened, I would've been in a much easier place to remove and replace parts. Ughhhh. I'm really hopeful it's a power issue that might get solved just by getting the new adapter. I've heard of these ones crapping out because it's such a huge power draw plus I had a good few music peripherals plugged in that drew power from USB that I'm also worried maybe caused a short somewhere in there. I'll know more soon, today I'll get the adapter and try it. If that doesn't work, I'll pull the back off, remove everything and clean and duster everything, reseat the RAM and SSD and see what happens. If that doesn't work, I'm out of ideas and I'll most likely end up just buying a new case and building it out with whatever parts I can salvage, which aren't all proprietary believe it or not, which was part of why I was ok with getting it in the first place. The RAM is standard RAM and it's a lot! So is the SSD. And the GPU. All of them should theoretically still work fine. But yeah I'll run into issues with Windows and stuff and that's fine too. I just don't have 1000$ to shell out on an entire new system. 

[drthvdr666]

Just got the new power adapter and that was not it. So, after it's plugged in, when I push the power button, you hear the fan run, the light is lit, and then it dims a little then just shuts off, then starts over. If I leave it, it'll just do that over and over again. Like a boot loop? Except it doesn't even get to the HP screen or anything. Literally nothing! I've tried another display and nothing shows up on it either. It's honestly a really strange problem that makes no sense to me. No blinking lights, no beeps, nothing that would make it seem like the computer knows something is wrong. Just tries to power up, goes for a second, then off and repeat. Any ideas would be helpful, I'll be pulling the back off this weekend and taking a look in there. Maybe internal power supply? Could that have got a surge and shorted? Its gotta be the mobo, I can't think of anything else

[WAWood]

I know we're guessing here -- but what else can we do??

If the PSU was outright bad, my guess would be that the LED would not light at all.  The fact it lights even briefly shows it is getting enough power to initialize.

If you're opening the case, then remove all the peripherals except the mouse and keyboard and see if the PC still stays on.  Since you're in there, you can try swapping out memory sticks to see if that makes a difference -- but my guess is, it will not.

I had a Dell Latitude that I used for years, upgraded from Win7, to Win10, even to Win11 (using Tiny11) -- and it worked without any issues.  Then one day, like your PC, I powered it on, it stayed on for a couple of seconds and shut off.  No display, no messages.  A replacement would cost around $250, but I don't feel like buying another OLD laptop that could also fail on  me any day.