Startup Freezing only with USB drive in

G

GreatestOne

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 15, 2005
Messages
488
Old Compaq PC, boots to Win7 fine without any USB plugged in, but as soon as you plug in a flash drive, it freezes at bootup, either on the Compaq welcome screen or even in the bootup select screen when I plug in the USB AFTER I go to the select screen, i.e., plugging in the USB stick freezes the pre-Windows bootup no matter what stage it is in, so I cant load my diagnostics tool. The Compaq built in diagnostics of course states nothing is wrong.

I have already tried putting in new memory, on a different slot, and recently had to install a new video card because the onboard went back, maybe related?

Thanks.....
 
If the onboard video is dead, that's a sign that the motherboard is starting to die out.

But to rule out a short, disassemble the PC and place the motherboard on a cardboard box. Try putting in the USB drive then.
 
Dangman said:
If the onboard video is dead, that's a sign that the motherboard is starting to die out.

But to rule out a short, disassemble the PC and place the motherboard on a cardboard box. Try putting in the USB drive then.
Click to expand...

Thats what I was thinking, the MB... but if its JUST the USB it doesnt like on boot up only, I may have to stop there, it wont be worth it for me to charge the client for what u suggested, even though I would def do it for my PC if needed, but for all this cost, she might as well buy a new PC, this one is over 3 years old and wasnt a very good one to begin with.

Thanks for your input.
 
This can be caused if the PC tries to boot off the USB drive but if there are no boot files it just freezes. You might be able to test this by using one of the many various tools to install Windows or Linux to a flash drive and then testing the PC to see if it still freezes on boot. The last time I saw this issue I was able to adjust the boot sequence to boot from USB after the hard drive. If that doesn't fix it... probably bad MB.
 
grim4593 said:
This can be caused if the PC tries to boot off the USB drive but if there are no boot files it just freezes. You might be able to test this by using one of the many various tools to install Windows or Linux to a flash drive and then testing the PC to see if it still freezes on boot. The last time I saw this issue I was able to adjust the boot sequence to boot from USB after the hard drive. If that doesn't fix it... probably bad MB.
Click to expand...

I had tried an empty, data filled and a bootup USB and they all caused it to freeze so I suspect MOBO is on its last legs so didnt wanna waste more hours on that, just told the client to make sure she backs up regularly because its an older PC and we not getting a new mobo just for that, but a new PC instead.

Thanks again.
 
Did you visual check capacitors on motherboard? For old systems this is one of the first things to check out on weird system boot freezes and onboard components not working corectly. But if motherboard is only 3 years old it will have all solid caps and it definitely cannot be considered 'old' - it's not android phone, you know...
 
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