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I ran Windows Update on my Windows 7 64-bit machine recently, and elected to reboot after the updates completed. My machine failed to completely power off after starting the reboot and I had to hold the power button to completely power off. When powering back on now, the machine won't POST.
After pushing the Clear CMOS button on the back of my Asrock Z77-ITX motherboard, I was able to get to BIOS, but the machine failed to POST after exiting.
Now I cannot get back to BIOS, even after pushing the Clear CMOS button. Did I fudge my machine after the hard power-off when trying to reboot?
3Seems like unrelated problems to me, doing that during the update process would only kill the software side and affect Windows' reboot and shouldn't affect hardware at all, unless it was applying a firmware update to something. Sounds more like a latent issue in the Mobo (or possible grounding issue) that was triggered. I would suggest removing all peripherals and non-essential hardware to try Posting (Gfx - if you have integrated, extra RAM, all USBs, all satas, etc.) – nerdwaller – 2013-02-17T22:00:17.547
I agree with @nerdwaller. Windows Update shouldn't really touch anything low level enough to prevent POST. Do you remember what updates it was installing or if you selected any optional updates? Also was the system performing regular updates (were the installed updates released recently)? – Dracs – 2013-02-18T00:58:45.657
@nerdwaller: Thanks, this seems like a sensible approach. As far as I remember, all of the updates were security related, including MSSE definitions, but nothing else optional. I was actually planning on updating my BIOS after the reboot, to see if it would fix my issue of not fully powering down on shutdown/reboot/sleep, and am glad I did not get to that point seeing how things turned out. – woemler – 2013-02-18T01:30:13.983