You sure? the BIOS/POST ( POWER ON SELF TEST) is the very first thing your PC does on startup before it even knows anything about an OS. If you have issues getting this far then its a fundamental hardware fault.
Thought it might be the vid card acting when I don't get the screen right away. After that I get the F1 & F10 options.
When you installed Ubuntu, did you get an 'extra' menu asking if you wanted Windows or Ubuntu when you started up. This is Grub.
It did once or twice but only showed the Windows line.
Interestingly, Julie WinXP started doing this some time ago, we found we had to constantly go into recovery mode and go back a day even though no updates had been installed in that time. Never got to teh bottom of it and she now uses Linux
It wouldn't let me use recovery, tried umpteen different dates
How loud is this 'noise', loud enough to worry or a gentle moan? ( You have checked its not the missus asking you something haven't you?
)
She'd better not speak when I'm messing with the computer.
It sometimes sounds like chattering teeth, after a while you hear the drive start up then the dvd spins.
Every 12 month since I got this thing it does a wobbler, I think Gates has lines of code saying its time for a new computer, lets have some fun.
Ian[/quote]