Loud fan on startup and nothing goes to the screen?

[DanTakken]

Sometimes when I turn my computer on, the fan starts spinning at an insane speed, and nothing goes through to my monitor screen. I have a bigger power supply and a Radeon HD 7870 graphics card. what would cause this issue?

This only really happens if I need to restart the computer, and if I leave it off for 30 mins or so and turn it on again, it boots up normally.

[DavidSMP]

@DanTakken,

Good Day.  Thanks for engaging in the HP community.  I will be glad to assist you and let’s get right to it. Terrific observations and great diagnosis of the issue. It is amply appreciated.

Let me gather some information for better clarity to assist you correctly:

• Did this happen after a recent power outage or surge?
• Does your computer overheat?
• Did you try to update the bios and check again?

I will be providing a roadmap with some troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue. Let us try these steps:

It looks like a hardware issue with the computer. Nevertheless, try these steps:

Perform all the relevant steps from this link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-pavilion-hpe-h8-1200-desktop-pc-series/5187019/model/5192469... (HP Desktop PCs - Computer Overheating Prevention)

• Updating the bios and running diagnostics are very important. These are steps in the document. Perform all the steps from step 1 to step 8.
• Now check if the issue gets resolved. If it persists, then the computer has a hardware issue and needs to be repaired. As this is an older computer and not manufacture red anymore, the parts for the computer are not supplied to HP by the original manufacturers who supplied the parts once.
• So you need to contact a local technician to get it repaired. I am being honest about it by keeping your best interest in mind.

Good luck and keep me posted about the developments. If this helps, please mark this as “Accepted Solution” as it will help several others with the same issue and give the post a Kudos for my efforts to help. Thank you and have a great week ahead. 🙂

[DanTakken]

Thank you for the detailed solution. I have a feeling that it is in fact a hardware issue, since it never overheats.

To answer your questions, I began noticing it a couple years ago and stopped using it for a while. I don't recall it happening after a power outage.

I haven't tried updating the Bios yet, but I will try that today.

The computer will usually go to sleep (approx. 9/10 times) but the odd time, the screen will turn off but the computer will stay running. Moving the mouse or pressing a keyboard button will not bring the screen back and Im forced to flip the power supply switch to shut it off.

The problem started happening years ago when I noticed that Windows would not load. I would have to shut it off and try again until Windows loaded.

Hope this additional information helps find a solution!

[mdklassen]

> Moving the mouse or pressing a keyboard button will not bring the screen back

The "power" settings in Windows can be configured to cut the power to the mouse & keyboard when the computer is "sleeping" or "hibernating".  So, using those devices will have no effect.

> I'am forced to flip the power supply switch to shut it off.

Have you tried a quick "tap" on the ON/OFF button, to "wake" the computers?

Or, or course, configure Windows to NOT power-down the KB/mouse.

[mdklassen]

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@DanTakken wrote:

Sometimes when I turn my computer on, the fan starts spinning at an insane speed, and nothing goes through to my monitor screen.  This only really happens if I need to restart the computer

If I leave it off for 30 mins or so and turn it on again, it boots up normally.

---

At "power-on" the fan is designed to run at 100%, until the POST (Power On Self Test) measures the temperature of the motherboard and of the processor, and then tells the fan that it's not necessary to run that quickly (and noisily).

So, if the POST does not start, or if it starts but does not successfully complete, then the fan stays at 100%, as you have observed.

It could be a heating issue -- during usage, the motherboard heats up, and "flexes", such that a reboot will fail.

As you said, letting it cool-down "undoes" that flexing, and so it works, for a while.

Such "intermittent" problems are so difficult to diagnose.

How "dusty" is the inside of your computer? A layer of dust acts like a blanket -- retaining unwanted heat.

[DanTakken]

So I successfully updated the BIOS to a version that was released a year after the version I had, and when it came time to restart to complete the update, my computer restarted normally.

I also got the HP hardware diagnostics tool and both tests passed every category. 

To answer some of the other posts in this thread, my computer is not dusty inside, and I highly doubt that it is a heat issue. But on that topic, is there some kind of thermostat inside my computer that perhaps could be cleaned somehow? Can a dirty thermostat pick up a false reading and cause my fan issue?

Everything works fine... for now. It goes to sleep without issues and it restarted following my BIOS update without the fan turning on at an insane speed. Thank you for your help and I will be back if the problem persists

[DanTakken]

Once the computer is sleeping, it will always wake up with a button pressed on either the keyboard or mouse. What was happening, was I would select sleep in the shutdown menu, my screen would go black like normal, but the computer wouldn't actually "go to sleep". It would continue to run and all the lights would stay on, but nothing would be on the screen and I couldn't do anything to wake the screen up. This is why I was forced to shut it down manually.

[mdklassen]

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@DanTakken wrote:

To answer some of the other posts in this thread, my computer is not dusty inside, and I highly doubt that it is a heat issue. But on that topic, is there some kind of thermostat inside my computer that perhaps could be cleaned somehow?

Can a dirty thermostat pick up a false reading and cause my fan issue?

Everything works fine... for now. It goes to sleep without issues and it restarted following my BIOS update without the fan turning on at an insane speed. Thank you for your help and I will be back if the problem persists

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To confirm/deny your doubts, Google-search for "download free SPECCY".

Download, install, and run SPECCY, and it will report:

• temperature of the processor
• temperature of the motherboard
• temperature of the disk-drive
• speed (RPM) of the fan on top of the processor
• "health" (S.M.A.R.T.) of the disk-drive

When the motherboard detects any "too high" temperature reading from the thermometer(s), it will speed-up the fan, which causes the fan to generate more noise.

Run SPECCY just after booting your computer, after it has been completely off for one hour.

Run it again, every 20 minutes, and compare the readings.

I think that a dirty thermometer would have a layer of dust, acting as an "insulating blanket", preventing the actual heat from being measured, i.e., it will always report a lower-than-actual value, not a higher-than-actual value.

Note that if you unplug the power to your computer, and then reconnect the power, and then reboot the computer, the fan may run at 100% for a few seconds, to allow the motherboard to "calibrate" the fan, to determine its maximum speed. 

But, if you just shutdown/power-off, or shutdown/reboot, it retains the result of the calibration.  So, in this  case, the fan does not "roar".

[mdklassen]

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@DanTakken wrote:

What was happening, was I would select sleep in the shutdown menu, my screen would go black like normal, but the computer wouldn't actually "go to sleep". It would continue to run and all the lights would stay on, but nothing would be on the screen ...

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That is what "sleep" mode is supposed to be -- it is not the same as "hibernation".

Wild bears that are hibernating in their den can be safely ear-tagged -- they will not wake up.

Never approach a sleeping bear.

Within Device Manager, check the "power" settings for the keyboard and for the mouse, to see if "sleeping" is configured to cut power to the devices.  If so, then a light "tap" of the ON/OFF button is the only way to "wake" the computer.