No POST unless left for hours. CD boot doesn't work.

[Coldkilla]

My cousins on the way over with his brand new PC because of some display problems he was having. Once he turns the PC on, there is no POST/Beep. If the PC is left at this state for a few hours, it eventually POSTS/Beeps and says: No Boot Device, please insert boot device to continue (or something like that). He tries setting it up to load from a CD, and nothing happens.

He's on his way over at the moment with his PC so I will better be able to describe everything to you guys, but he wont be here for another 2 hours so in the mean time if you could throw some suggestions our way, that'd be awesome. Thanks.

 

[funkymatt]

a bad hard drive will do that... try disconnecting the drive and inserting a bootable cd.

 

[Coldkilla]

I'll make sure we try that once he arrives. Should I use like a WindowsXP cd or something more specific?

 

[funkymatt]

I've been favoring Hiren's boot disk. A live linux disc will be sufficient too.

 

[Coldkilla]

I'll have it ready. So basically, if the CD loads - the hard drive is dead?

 

[Denithor]

Brand new PC...problems...before you get started looking around in there, is this system under any kind of warranty?

 

[Coldkilla]

He built it. It was a bad ram stick, we figured it out. Thanks yall!