Ok I give up, can't take this no more!

S

Sikpupi

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 13, 2003
Messages
382
Now I am asking for help and hopefully someone can see a link here. My total specs are as follows.

WinXP + SP2 + all patches (legal version)
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe - 1407 bios
Core2Duo E6600 @ 2.4Ghz
2*1024mb G-Skill DDR2 800 HZ series
Sapphire Radeon X1600 PRO 256megs + CAT 6.9 <- yeh I know :) replacement in the post.
Fatal1ty XFI - front panel (latest official drivers)
Western Digital 250gig (boot drive) + 320 gig SATA / Seagate 7200.10 500 gig SATA
Plextor SATA DVD Burner
Logitech G15 + MX Evolution mouse
Dell 2405FPW DVI connection.
BeQuiet 530watt PSU (same oem as OCZ)

So the problem is that XP loads just fine most of the time, however sometimes it just doesn't. It's totally random, the XP loading screen comes up and then it goes black, G15 keyboard lights up and . . . nothing! Just a black screen and it will stay all day if I let it.

I can switch off, wait a minute and try again and it comes up fine. It is driving me insane, the real kicker is that I have had the same problem for the last year or so, with totally different hardware. I have had about 3 hardware refreshes but I can't seem to get rid of this bloody annoying problem. It annoys my better half, she says (quite correctly) for all the money I throw at this, the least it can do is load when turned on.

Needless to say I have reinstalled XP several times, after day 3 or so this problem begins, every f******g time. Different boot hard drives makes no difference (I tried raptors, and others) ATI / Nvidia VGA same problem, Intel / AMD same problem, Intel / Ati / Nvidia chipset - Same problem, Asus, Abit, Biostar - Same problem.

At the end of the line right now!

All ideas appreciated.
 
This sounds like more of a hardware problem. Have you kept the same RAM with all your installs? Same HDDs? Especially that SATA burner, I've heard of weird things happening with lots of motherboards with those.

Check USB devices, I've had my USB HDD simply freeze the boot process when I used to be on my DFI motherboard.

Run dual instances of Prime95 for longer than 24 hours and then let memtest run overnight.
 
RAM has been changed, tried OCZ (DDR 400) Corsair (DDR2 667) and Gskill (DDR2 800)
All of them have been the same.
 
sultan_emerr said:
not sure, but you might check http://support.microsoft.com/KB/314503
Click to expand...


That would be ok if the computer didn't start at all, i'm using safe mode right now cos the last boot attempt didn't work.

Starting to be really sick of this issue, I buld computers for friends and at work and nobody gets these problems, only the one I make for myself.

Only thing common between these machines is the Dell monitor.

**I just tried with my daughters viewsonic VP201B - booted first time, failed on reboot**
 
just to recap, you've tried different mobos and cpus and still have this problem?
 
t00thless said:
just to recap, you've tried different mobos and cpus and still have this problem?
Click to expand...


mobo, cpu, ram, vga, psu, hd, dvdrom.

Should just about cover it.
 
Do you use a UPS or a Surge protector? I had alot of random boot problems that were solved with the purchase of a new ups/surge protector seems the old one had lost it's ability to condition my noisy home wiring. we experience alot of Sags and spikes in our home and the new unit took care of the mysterious boot problems I was exeriencing.
 
Bad install media? Funky HDD, CD-ROM? If you have two HDDs, try installing to the other one instead.
 
chris.putertech said:
Do you use a UPS or a Surge protector? I had alot of random boot problems that were solved with the purchase of a new ups/surge protector seems the old one had lost it's ability to condition my noisy home wiring. we experience alot of Sags and spikes in our home and the new unit took care of the mysterious boot problems I was exeriencing.
Click to expand...

That or your case temperature is too high.
 
This sounds relatively similar to a problem I was having a couple of months ago. Shortly after I bought a viewsonic vx2025w. I had been having random blue screens, but reboot and windows would come back up normally. Eventually it would either hang on the windows logo screen or afterwords at a black screen. After reinstalling xp I noticed that there was no monitor tab in device manager. When I got to the point of rebooting after installing/updating the video card drivers(radeon 1900xt), the system would hang after the windows logo screen everytime. Once I noticed there was no monitor in device manager, I thought there must be some short of conflict between xp, the vid card and the monitor. Luckily I had an old nvidia pci card, so I took out my ati pci-e card, then reinstalled xp with the nvidia card in. Then I had a monitor tab again in device manager and was able to install the monitor drivers. Then I put the pci-e card back in and when I checked device manager the monitor was set back to plug and play monitor, I installed the monitor drivers again, then the ati drivers and I haven't had a blue screen or problem booting since.
Maybe try an older slot vid. card if possible and reinstalling xp.
​
 
Thanks for all the replies and suggestions, I pretty much covered everything already here except the surge protector.
I'm starting to suspect my TrackIR as ridicolous as it sounds.
 
Again, unplug all USB devices. I've had numerous problems thanks to otherwise working USB devices.
 
Load the Catalyst 6.8 drivers. I believe this is an issue with the 6.9's...I just built a machine with very similar specs and have been experiencing the same issues until I rolled back to CAT 6.8's.

Edit: Load into safe mode to remove your drivers if you have to.
 
The Donut said:
Again, unplug all USB devices. I've had numerous problems thanks to otherwise working USB devices.
Click to expand...


Are you saying that everytime I reboot I should unplug everything? :eek:
 
Sikpupi said:
Are you saying that everytime I reboot I should unplug everything? :eek:
Click to expand...
No, but at this point you are still diagnosing the problem, not solving it.
 
Sikpupi said:
Are you saying that everytime I reboot I should unplug everything? :eek:
Click to expand...

If you care you probably have too much stuff hooked up anyways! :p Ive seen numerous boot issues myself related to usb hardware being plugged in at boot. Perhaps a usb hub you can unhook easily might be a good solution for you.
 
Actually I have to bite the bullet and say you guys might have found the source of the problem here. I removed everything from the back (except keyboard) and have restarted XP about 10 times, I have a 100% restart record, previously it would be about 30%.

Now the hardest bit, how do I get everything back in there, and what is the problem exactly?

Edit to show how my usb devices are setup.

Motherboard : socket 1 -> G15 keyboard -> cordless mouse receiver (plugged into keyboard)
Motherboard : socket 2 -> Logitech Quickcam Fusion
Motherboard : socket 3 -> Track IR
Motherboard : socket 4 -> USB cable to Dell 2405
Dell 2405 - Canon Printer + Lacie external USB disk (usually both turned off)
Dell 2405 - Integrated USB hub + card reader.
Antec case front panel (mobo USB header) - Microsoft Xbox 360 controller.
 
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