Hi, I'm working on a PC, specifically a HP Pavilion p6-2014. Initially the PC was taken to me because it wouldn't boot. It seemed like a graphics card issue because the fans would spin up, the hard drive would grind, and there were no BIOS beep codes. I tried swapping monitors and that didn't make a difference. The video card is on board. After trying several things, like testing the PSU, installing a new PSU, installing a new VGA, swapping monitors, and pulling the memory, I still didn't get any signal to the monitor and the PC still didn't fully boot. So...on a whim I pulled the CMOS battery, waited about two minutes, and put it back in. Like magic, it booted up without a problem and ran exactly like it did before the troubles. I figured it fixed and returned it to the owner. Episode 2 Same issue occurs about two to three weeks later. Thinking it was just a drained battery,and again nothing wrong hardware-wise so my diagnosis was that the battery was drained so I put in a newCMOS battery. Once again, just like before, it booted up without a problem. I took the PC home, ran a virus scan again (I did before thinking there may have been some sort of virus affecting the mobo. I had read that this happens in some rare cases, and I always run a virus scan since it seems 99% of the time my customers problems are viruses)So I ran the virus scan, a few things came up, nothing major. I cleaned up the malware and sent it back to the owner. Episode 3 Ok. So the owner calls me now for a third time. Same issue, she tries to boot her PC but there is the same issue. No video signal, hard drive grinds, dvd-rom spins up, no post beeps, fans spin up, etc. So I take the PC home for the third time. I pop out and put back in the CMOS battery, knowing that will "fix" it and of course it did. I tested the battery with the multimeter and it showed a little bit lower than 3V, around 2.8 (if my memory serves me). I ran all of the HP built in diagnostics. I also: Changed the Power Cord Installed a new Power Supply Replaced VGA cord to monitor Used a PCI slot tester Used a PSU tester Used a multimeter to test the molex connectors (however it is both molex and sata) Ran 2 memory diagnostics - HP Diagnostics RaN CPU diagnostics- HP Diagnostics Virus wise I ran full scans of Malware Bytes, Kapersky, and McAfee. I also ran a rescue disk to scan at Boot Time. Everything was clean. Its been about four days running nonstop. But I have a feeling when I return it to the owner in two weeks it will die again. Plus I don't know what to tell the owner and I'd like to know the problem myself for future reference.
