Interesting Boot Problems

Q

QB

Famous
Joined
May 16, 2008
Messages
433
Occasionally I have some interesting boot issues. I'm hoping one of our many tech gurus can give me some insight into my issues.

It kinda goes like this:

My MB is a rather old DFI lanparty SLI DR. One of the formerly great features of this board: CMOS reloaded. I'm not so sure of whether this is a good feature or not anymore. I really have no clue if this is related to my issue or not.

Sometimes, when I power down my PC, I get what APPEARS to be a failure to boot. I simply receive a blank screen and hear a repetitive buzzing noise coming from the case. This is not a hard drive or any fan in the entire setup.

In the past, I have used a jumper to activate CMOS reloaded, and the computer has booted on the next boot after the reset. The other night, this did not work - resulting in a repeated failure to boot - or so I thought.

Out of curiosity (because I had never seen this), I decided to observe every detail I could. I noticed that the various indicator lights on the MB AND the Numlock/capslock keys on the keyboard flashed in the same order as a healthy boot. This intrigued me. I then decided to see if a ctrl-alt-del would initiate a reboot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this won't work if the BIOS fails to load? Ctrl-alt-del resulted in a reset, and another "apparent" failure to boot.

Wow this was really frustrating - I ask myself what's going on and continue with trial and error.

Eventually - after I unsuccessfully insert a different video card and reinsert my current video card - I get a standard successful boot. I also get the standard "Windows Failed to start successfully" message, with its accompanying options. This seems to support my notion that the BIOS did not fail to load.

So....

Since I am clueless when it comes to this level of troubleshooting, could anyone assist with it? I'll post additional tech specs even though I think they're irrelevant:

AMD Athlon64 3200
1GB DDR400
SATA WD Raptor (74GB) as the primary drive
MB as mentioned
ATI Radeon x800XL video card
 
Unplug your computer, open up the case, pull out the CMOS battery (looks like a large watch battery) and set the jumper near it to the other two pins. Should be like this.

---- . <--- Original
1 2 3

. ---- <--- Reset
1 2 3

May be backwards, but you get the idea. Leave it out for AT LEAST 10 minutes. Put it all back the way it was, and it *should* work. CMOS resets ftw!

If not, I'll check back in the morning.

~Gooda~
 
If you fire the PC up with that jumper set it should wipe the BIOS clean.

After, power it down and switch it back to normal.

Shouldn't need to take out the battery or leave it to fester (discharge) for 10 minutes.

Discharge shouldn't take that long either - if you pull that battery out, it should be instant.

That's how it's worked with every MB I've ever owned.
 
you could have a boot file problem. This is always messing me up til I just jam on the F8 key so I can get the boot menu of the BIOS. Then I select my system hard drive that vista is on. I never have at the reset the CMOS or any thing like that. I get the message there is not boot drive ready insert one then press any key. I press an key and that doesn't work. Try the F8 idea of mine then when it opens the boot menu select your boot hard drive which holds xp or vista. In my case vista. I wish you good luck in fixing the problems. Also your computer could be starting to slow down and die

BTW I looked at your CPU you have. I used to have that cpu, but that computer died a year ago. Yours might be fried.
 
It could be that one of your ram chips is failing (if you have multiples). The only suggestion I can think of is figure out which one is going bad and replacing it.

The pc speaker buzzing a usually a indicator for either a video problem, or ram problem. Since you already tried changing video card the only think I can think of is the ram.
 
I'm leaning toward a pcie-port issue or a RAM issue. But I thought the bios would at least load if it was a ram issue. It would maybe just not recognize one of the sticks? Would it be an issue if it failed to recognize stick no 1 of a dual channel setup? Maybe that is it?
 
Like I said. It could be that one of the ram chips is failing. On the older MB the system wouldn't even boot if there was a problem with one of a multiple ram setup. The ram chip could be on the cusp of complete failure, but have enough life left in it to let you boot, depending on the error checking of the MB. It could be either ram chip. If it doesn't happen every time that you boot, then I am more inclined to think that it's the secondary chip that is failing since the MB is letting it slide most of the time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top