what is my step in fault diagnosis?

[luspr]

I am looking for help with what stages I can now follow to diagnose my PC fault as I have tried everything I can think of and still haven't been able to pin it down

The System Spec

Athlon 1666MHz Processor
Jetway V830CH/830CF Motherboard
512Mb PC133 RAM (single stick)
80Gb HD
Radeon 9200 Graphics Card
M-Audio Delta 44 Sound Card
OS Windows XP Pro

The Problem

In order to boot my PC I need to hit the power on/off about 15-20 times and keep trying to boot until eventually the system starts and Windows XP loads. The first few times I hear the fan spin but no memory test occurs, then after a few tries the memory test will happen but the pc hangs while detecting the drives. After a few more tries the drives are detected but the PC will then hang during the first Windows XP splash screen i.e. the loading page. Eventually the system after many power downs will get to the blue splash page, where it will almost certainly hang and require power on/off until finally I get to the desktop. Then maybe I will suffer just one more system lock up before I can use the PC as normal.

That in short is my problem. Things to note:

Once the OS is up and running the PC is stable for extended periods, certainly 48 hours+
Once the OS is up and running I can restart from the start menu and have NO PROBLEM booting up. I can even shut down and immediately reboot and it will boot FIRST TIME. It's almost as if the machine will boot if there is a bit of heat in the system - very strange.
The problem is getting worse everytime the PC is switched off for more than a few minutes i.e. it is taking more and more attempts to boot each time. At first I would need 3 or 4 attempts, now I need 15-20. The only way I am delaying this is to leave the PC turned on as long as possible and just turn off the monitor, although it does become unstable after some days of continuous use.

What I have Tried So Far

At first I thought the problem was related to the Radeon card as I was suffering some retarts caused by (according to XP fault diagnosis) video driver errors, so I updated the vid card and motherboard AGP drivers to no effect. But the true test is that having removed the Radeon and the Delta 44 sound card the problem was still the same.

I have tried (twice) a re-install of XP to no effect. NB this was an install on the same NTFS partition, not a complete HD format.

I have tried swapping the RAM with that on my back up PC, the problem was the same, suggesting that my RAM is not to blame.

I have been through whatever XP calls scandisk (error checking), including running it from DOS on a restart. No errors were detected.

Conclusions

I am expecting that the nature of the problem is either a motherboard defect or a power supply problem, although I suppose there is a vague possibility that it is BIOS related. My problem really is that I don't know what steps to take to diagnose my problem further. As I am currently on a limited budget I don't really have the option of buying a new mother board only to find out that the problem is the power supply...

Does anyone recognise any of these symptoms?

All thoughts on where I go next are most welcome!

Thanks, Luspr

 

[tf1]

My gut feeling is that is you are on the right track when you suspect that 'heating up' is a factor. I suggest that you diassemble and reassemble all the components to make sure that all connections are clean and properly seated.

If you can get the system booted up and stable again for a while, try putting you machine into Sleep mode: allow it sufficient time to get really cool (say 1 - 2 hours) and then see if it wakes up.

It is the PSU that I would suspect first: when you start from cold, go into BIOS setup as soon as the system allows it and see what the PSU voltages are reading. Maybe one of the voltages is a little low when the system is cold.

Good luck with your diagnostics.

Regards: tf1

 

[edfair]

Rather than power down, how about using the reset?
You may have swapped the memory, but I would suspect that you still have memory problems. Possibly something BIOS related.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[micker377]

Do you have a spare harddrive you could install the OS on? This would tell you if the harddrive is slow spinning up. Has this system been working OK, or is it a new system?

 

[BadBigBen]

Hola,

sounds like the notorious 'Cold-Boot' problem, which is PSU related, meaning that there isn't enough power at Cold Start (as mentioned earlier)... Remedy, get a NameBrand PSU rated at 400w+ (enough reserve for later) with at least a +5Vsb at 2A or above...

but do check what was mentioned earlier that could cause this aswell, though I'll bet it's PSU...



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...

 

[Nelviticus]

If none of the above work, it could be a stuck fan. I had a machine where the bearings were wearing out on the CPU fan. It was fine once it got going but quite often it wouldn't start up unless I gave it a gentle push.

Just a thought!

Nelviticus

 

[ceh4702]

Here are some suggestions:

Dont use hybernation or fast boot as option in the BIOS.

Try a new power supply. Memory is sensitive to a constant and steady supply of the exact amount of current necessary to operate the memory and the PC. If there is instability, or not enough power during the boot process, both Memory and hard drive issues can occur.

Normally I would not think a motherboard would overheat during normal boot-up procedures; however, it is possible. If you had a spare video card you could test it with that to see if it works better, even if it is an older PCI video card or a low-end MX400 or something like a Radeon 7000.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[luspr]

Firstly, thanks to all of you who replied to the question, there was much to think about there. I was inclined to think that the problem is PSU related like some of you think. Just to clarify, the system is about 1.5 years old, it was fine when new, but has been going steadily downhill for a couple of months.

For now I have been leaving the pc turned on for as long a possible, however, last night I powered down as it had been on for 5 days running and I wanted to give it a chance to cool off...

This morning I get the following message:

"CMOS checksum error - defaults loaded"

which a little checking on the Net tells me is probably either CMOS Battery, MoBo, Virus (pretty sure its not that), but not PSU it seems. Is that correct?

Any inside info on this error message? Is there an obvious next step, bearing in mind that I don't have a spare CMOS battery (and haven't checked yet to see if it's possible to replace mine...)?

Is it possible that my MoBo is breaking down after being fine for over a year?

As ever, thanks for your thoughts

Luspr

 

[luspr]

Once again to clarify the above, i did a warm restart and I didn't get the CMOS checksum error again... *confused*

 

[BadBigBen]

Hola, I would be inclined to say that the PSU is still the culprit... replace the CMOS battery (usually marked as 2032)...

it seems that the CMOS battery might already be flaky, even after 1.5 years, I mean you don't know how long it's been in the mobo before you got it...



Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...