Xp Warm boot issue.

[Sympology]

Got dragged over to a relatives house to look at the pc at the weekend to try to work out why it wouldn't boot.

I've kind of got it working, but has some odd behaviour.

Firstly ran scandisk and full Virus / Spyware scan, all clean.
ran CCleaner and cleared out a load of junk.
Upgraded to i.e and removed all toolbars and reset to defaults) as it kept crashing (FF & Chrome ok)
Uninstalled some junk software, thath they really didn't need.
Once all done ran CC again.
Reset BIOS to defaults.
However one issue still remains.
If the PC is warm booted, it fails to boot. Run the bios start up screen but then goes either totally blank or the windows logo appears but very dark and no progress bar.
No HDD activity, so I know it's not the monitor as it still has a signal.
However if I power down and unplug and boot back up, it boot ok. This is the crunch it always come back with the "Windows failed to start" message, so I can tell it is getting to windows.
The system has no memory 512mb (for a 3200 athlon!) so I'm ordering 2gb, so i can swap out.
However just wondering things I can easily check that I may of missed out.
CPU temp in BIOS seems ok, fan speed seems low (950rpm), but I've no idea how fast one should run for this system.
I can't easilt try new power as my system is ancient so won't fit.
One odd thing, if I put the drive on a different SATA connector the BIOS doesn't see it, but no idea if this is feature of the board (MSI) that I need to reconfigure anywhere. Raid is disabled.
Are there any (free) tools I could run to check the system out.

Would google but there is so much crap out there don't want to risk a dodgy one.

Thanks for any help.

PS will check for buldging caps when next there as well.

Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."

 

[BadBigBen]

The symptoms described sound like a contact issue, or even failing PSU issue...

unplug all cables and replug them, do the same for all PCI cards, AGP and RAM modules...

The other SATA connectors could be disabled in the BIOS Setup, and thus it would not work, or the BIOS needs them to be plugged in order of the SATA ports... e.g. Port0 needs to be populated before Port1 becomes active...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

BIOS update?? Check boot order/options especially if there are any external USB hard drives or USB memory sticks attached that might interfere with booting.

 

[Sympology]

Reseated most things, I'll redo the SATA in BIOS and cards (mistakenly forgot my screwdrivers).
Oddly the drive was on Port 1, not 0. Other two were disabled, so I enabled them as well. Boot order is now HDD first.
However I had the idea of creating a Linux (wash my mouth out) USB boot drive. That way I guess if it warm boots into Linux everytime, it (sort of) rules out some components, leaving me with MoBo, HDD or Windows itself (although why a warm boot would affect it would be unclear).

Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."

 

[Grenage]

The Linux boot drive is a good idea, most distros will throw their toys out of the pram at the first sign of a hardware issue.

"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area" - Major Mike Shearer

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
My Dell exhibited the same symptoms and it took a new power supply to correct it although the techs had no idea why that would have made a difference..





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[linney]

You might as well look at the hard drives in case they are failing.

Try running ChkDsk to check your drive for errors. Right-click your Drive icon/ Properties/ Tools/ Error Checking. Select both boxes.

The drive manufacturer will have free bootable diagnostic software to thoroughly check out the condition of the hard drives.

Does it boot into Safe Mode without any problems?

 

[Sympology]

OK thought I'd post back.
Got some new ram, threw it in and all worked ok. Put old ram back in, still ok, then noticed it was running in single channel mode. Swapped the memory around so it was dual channel, still ok. Took out the new memory and left old memory as dual chan, failed to boot several times. Swapped it around to single channel, booted ok. Put new memory in took out old and set as dual channel, booted ok.

Did a VERY quick search for dual channel memory issues and MSI kept coming up. Checked, sure enough MSI board.
Did a BIOS update and loads of other updates.
Fired back up and all ok.
It seemed that it had problems with the older memory in dual channel mode, fixed by a BIOS update.

Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."