Strange Windows XP Loading Issues

M

Murali

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 2, 2004
Messages
282
System Specs:
Asus A8N32-SLI
X2 3800+
4x512mb PC3200 Mushkin DDR(2-2-2)
4 hard drives, varying sizes
OCZ Modstream 520w
2x DVD Burners
eVGA 7800GT
Creative Soundblaster Audigy

Alright, so last weekend... probably saturday, around 3 am, I was talking to people on AIM when suddenly the computer hard locks. Music on Winamp is playing; winamp is still working (going through music and such) but Windows is locked... Can't do anything can't click on anything. Try restarting, the computer goes past the Windows loading status bar and then sits at a black screen.

Annoyed, I turn it off and let it sit for the night. In the morning, I throw in the XP Repair Disk, hoping to get it to work... Windows Installer fixes some corrupt files and stuff on my C and doesn't do the repair install. On reboot to actually perform the repair install, I skip the Windows CD and it boots into Windows.... and works. Flawlessly.

For the day. THAT night, at 6 AM, SAME thing happens. I try running hard drive tests, but they all freeze on the drive I'm trying to perform it. I conclude that the hard drive is shot, and order a new drive.

Fast forward, the drive arrives. I put it in, everything seems pretty peachy. For whatever reason the .NET 1.1 Security patch absolutely refused to install... so I'm like, umm, something musta screwed up... Oh well, and I reformatted again. On this install, the Network Card driver install froze... Couldn't close it, at all. I go to start-shutdown and restart but it just hangs on "Saving System Settings". Annoyed, I restart it. Same thing as before, gets past Windows status bar and then black screens. I reformat AGAIN, this time, I unplug the 3 unnecessary drives. It works, Windows successfully installs (3rd time). I plug in one of the extra drives, the one that contains all my drivers, and all the drivers install... my AV installs fine. If I plug in my extra drive with programs and such, it does the getting past status bar, and freezing thing. Unplugged it, booted into Windows, and started downloading patches, and proceeded to take a nap. I wake up to see my monitor off (normal for my power settings), but it will not wake up. I hit the reset button, and bam. Same problem. Gets past Windows status bar, black screens... and eventually blue screens, reboots, but too fast for me to crash code.

I have my bios set to overvolt the CPU NB and SB in hopes of finding out if its a power issue
Bios reports voltages:
VCORE 1.552V
3.3V 3.184-3.200V
5V 4.892-4.4.919V
12V 11.776V

Amusingly, before I started writing this post, it wasn't working. I unplugged all the drives, and only had my DVD burners in and started a memtest. I rebooted to get the bios values (no memtest errors when I did, and 90% complete) and now it works, with my C: drive and my Drivers drive.

I am so, so confused.
 
Yea... I had this thought as well :(

I don't want it to be true!

I guess I'll go AM2 if it is true, though... Damnit.

Anyone else chime in with suggestions, please?
 
Murali said:
and eventually blue screens, reboots, but too fast for me to crash code.
Click to expand...

You need to change some simple settings so you can at least get a look at the error, and maybe we can find some direction.

Right click on "MyComputer"...go to Properties / Advanced Tab / Startup and Recovery / Settings

Under "System Failure", uncheck the "Automatically Reboot" box. This way you can write down the error and stand a chance of tracking down the culprit ;)
 
Sir_Loin said:
You need to change some simple settings so you can at least get a look at the error, and maybe we can find some direction.

Right click on "MyComputer"...go to Properties / Advanced Tab / Startup and Recovery / Settings

Under "System Failure", uncheck the "Automatically Reboot" box. This way you can write down the error and stand a chance of tracking down the culprit ;)
Click to expand...

Done.. I'll report back if I find a error code.

Whats strange is there are no error codes listed in my event viewer.
 
You may want to try running a couple of passes of Memtest86+.
If its bad memory then it will show up.
Also it a good way of soak testing the hardware for a period of time.
If it error out then you are looking at a hardware problem not a Windoze software one.

Its now the first program I run if I think there is a problem with my hardware for that reason.

Luck........... :D
 
Tigerbiten said:
You may want to try running a couple of passes of Memtest86+.
If its bad memory then it will show up.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah
90% of 1 pass is definitely not sufficient to rule out a memory issue. To be thorough you need to run it for 24 hours minimum.

Case in point, I was having issue with stability in my system. One pass of Memtest said everything was fine. HOWEVER, on the 65 pass I started getting errors like a mofo. If I hadn't let it run all night and into the next day, I never would have found the problem.
 
Had a similar problem, don't know if its the same. Windows XP startup screen, the one with the progress animation, was "dull" in color and would take forever to get to the login screen.

My two Diamondmax 300GB drives were plugged in and operable, but unused, and sitting in the second bay of my case, not getting a lot of cooling. I removed them (they were *very* hot to the touch). Since then, no more Windows startup issues. So for me, my observation is high internal temperature was de-stabilizing the overall system, and subsequently Windows.

YMMV.
 
I would do two things (both already mentioned):
  • Try a new PSU; all three of those rails look low.
  • Make sure that your RAM hasn't crapped out on you. Before running memtest86 for a full 24hrs, make sure that all your memory settings (timings and voltages) are set manually.
 
karmasoft said:
Had a similar problem, don't know if its the same. Windows XP startup screen, the one with the progress animation, was "dull" in color and would take forever to get to the login screen.

My two Diamondmax 300GB drives were plugged in and operable, but unused, and sitting in the second bay of my case, not getting a lot of cooling. I removed them (they were *very* hot to the touch). Since then, no more Windows startup issues. So for me, my observation is high internal temperature was de-stabilizing the overall system, and subsequently Windows.

YMMV.
Click to expand...

These drives have 120mm fans blowin directly over em... and are cool to the touch, which is why I don't think its the hard drives themselves.


I'm gonna try memtesting for an extended period tomorrow... have an MC run in the morning I can't miss, and it seems to be working fine now =P
 
No memtest errors...

Although, it seems like its taking forever for memtest+ to finish its runs. 40-45 minutes for 1 run, I don't ever remember it taking this long.
 
For 2 gig around 45 mins a pass is good.
I run at around 25 mins a gig, 3.5 hours a pass.

Do you have a spare drive you could put a fresh install of Windoze on ?

Luck............. :D
 
Ok, you've got 4 hard drives and 2 dvd drives so you must be using a combination of sata ports and pata ports. Could you please detail exactly what drive is on what port, and if you have 4 sata mobo ports; please list which ones you're using.

This would help us loads ;)
 
Oh yeah, and 4 sticks of ram in any mobo can cause problems, and cause them over time where there previously was no problem.

Try removing 2 of the sticks and leave just a gig in and put all your drives back in and see how it goes. I'd bet that'd solve it, annoyingly.
 
spine said:
Ok, you've got 4 hard drives and 2 dvd drives so you must be using a combination of sata ports and pata ports. Could you please detail exactly what drive is on what port, and if you have 4 sata mobo ports; please list which ones you're using.

This would help us loads ;)
Click to expand...

PATA1: DVD Burner
PATA2: DVD Burner
SATA1(Master 3): Windows drive
SATA2(Master 4): Backups Drive
SATA3(Master 5): Files Drive
SATA4(Master 6): Files Drive


It hasn't given me any issues in the last day or so... I really don't understand, theres no pattern. Granted, at the moment, I don't have one of my drives plugged in.
 
Tigerbiten said:
For 2 gig around 45 mins a pass is good.
I run at around 25 mins a gig, 3.5 hours a pass.

Do you have a spare drive you could put a fresh install of Windoze on ?

Luck............. :D
Click to expand...


The drive that I have windows on is a brand new drive... Previously, I thought the problem was in the hard drive, so I replaced it with a spankin' new Seagate 250 gb 16 mb 7200 RPM drive.... but no luck
 
Oooooooooooook.

Just got a BSOD while using Windows... Was using GetDataBack-NTFS to grab data off a drive that somehow lost the file system (but I believe the files are still there).

The crash was pointing to nvata.sys with a stop error 0x00000060... Whats odd is its not logged in my Event Viewer, at all.
 
Murali said:
Oooooooooooook.

Just got a BSOD while using Windows... Was using GetDataBack-NTFS to grab data off a drive that somehow lost the file system (but I believe the files are still there).

The crash was pointing to nvata.sys with a stop error 0x00000060... Whats odd is its not logged in my Event Viewer, at all.
Click to expand...


Oooh, I'm a fool. That should be a 0x000000D1, nvata.sys
 
Have you tried what I said earlier about the ram?

spine said:
Oh yeah, and 4 sticks of ram in any mobo can cause problems, and cause them over time where there previously was no problem.

Try removing 2 of the sticks and leave just a gig in and put all your drives back in and see how it goes. I'd bet that'd solve it, annoyingly.
Click to expand...
Hard drives errors can quite often be just memory errors.
 
spine said:
Have you tried what I said earlier about the ram?


Hard drives errors can quite often be just memory errors.
Click to expand...

Yea... to no avail, unfortunately. Still crashes =(
 
Murali said:
Oooh, I'm a fool. That should be a 0x000000D1, nvata.sys
Click to expand...

No, not a fool at all. nvata.sys is part of your nvidia ATA drivers. I'd try to either update update the driver or reinstall an older one more compatable with your system. Do your SATA drives show up in your system tray as "removable"? If they do, I don't think that in itself is the problem, but I think the nvata.sys is optional for PATA devices when you're installing the nvidia drivers. With that in mind, you could (if more recent or older drivers aren't more stable for you) uninstall all nvidia drivers, and then reinstall the drivers...but when the installer asks "do you want to install the nvidia ata driver", just choose no and the winxp drivers will be used. Maybe you can even just uninstall the nvidia ata driver, but I doubt it since it's probably a package deal. I'd have to research that one. You know, I believe when you run the nvidia installer, it removes the old drivers and then installs the new ones. I think it may prompt you on the ata driver. We might get lucky!

Also make sure that nvata.sys is what keeps inducing the bsod. Looking at the lack of responsiveness of the system, I think we're on the right track.

I'm out of town, so I'm just checking in when I can..... :cool:

Just remember, if you do uninstall all the nvidia drivers, you won't be able to boot off you SATA drive anymore, so try all of you other options first ;)
 
If it is the SATA driver do you have an old IDE hard drive that you could load Windoze on.
If it does not crash then you may be on the right track at isolating the problem.
Thats the next thing I would try.

Luck........ :D
 
Well.

I bit the bullet and just bought another A8N32-SLI motherboard to replace this. I don't really time to keep fooling around with it... I really need to get it working. Heres hoping its not the CPU! :)
 
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