Can boot only into Safe Mode every other time

[Janus]

From a week, my computer will sometimes not boot - the progress bar in the
boot screen freezes after a few 'runs'. I can hit the PC power reset switch
and boot into safe mode. Now when I shut down from Safe Mode and reboot, it
boots back fine. This happens for almost every other start-up. Other times
it boots fine - the progress bar makes only a couple of 'runs' before I get
to the log-on screen.

There have been no hardware/software changes that I can pin down to this
behavior, except for XP Pro SP2 Automatic Updates, and also updates for
SpyBot and Lavasoft Ad-aware, besides other installed software.

Norton SystemWorks 2003 was completely removed manually and all Symantec and
Norton references were edited out of the registry. This was following advice
from an associate where he had an almost similar problem after NSW was
updated with the Symantec 'NetDriver'. Not in my case as I found out, but
removal os NSW made this PC run faster during the times I could boot it up!

Event Viewer shows no problems or warnings, all hardware devices have latest
drivers with no IRQ or other conflicts, BootVis was run and the results
checked and the files optimized, SFC as well as CHKDSK revealed no system
errors, even a cloned hard drive was tried. The system was checked for
malafide files with Spybot, Ad-aware, Anti-Vir, MS Malicious Software
Remover,

The behavior persists. This PC is not on a network. Used mainly for
word-processing and light multimedia tasking, it is connected to the
Internet only when my wireless Internet EV-DO card is plugged in (borrowed
from my laptop), mostly for updates.

Any pointers on what to look for would be much appreciated.

Thanks in anticipation.

Janus


Brief PC Details:

Intel D850GBAL Motherboard
Intel 1.7 GHz P4 CPU
768 MB PC-800 RDRAM
nVidia GeForce 3 Ti-200 AGP graphics card
Hard drives - 120GB (System)
+ 180GB + 250Gb + 250GB + 250GB
(these on PCI UATA Controller Card)
Opticals - TDK 4x DVD+R
Lite-On 16x CD-RW
Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2 - all updates installed

 

[JOHN E. CARR]

From a week, my computer will sometimes not boot - the progress bar in the
boot screen freezes after a few 'runs'. I can hit the PC power reset
switch
and boot into safe mode. Now when I shut down from Safe Mode and reboot,
it
boots back fine. This happens for almost every other start-up. Other times
it boots fine - the progress bar makes only a couple of 'runs' before I
get
to the log-on screen.

There have been no hardware/software changes that I can pin down to this
behavior, except for XP Pro SP2 Automatic Updates, and also updates for
SpyBot and Lavasoft Ad-aware, besides other installed software.

Norton SystemWorks 2003 was completely removed manually and all Symantec
and
Norton references were edited out of the registry. This was following
advice
from an associate where he had an almost similar problem after NSW was
updated with the Symantec 'NetDriver'. Not in my case as I found out, but
removal os NSW made this PC run faster during the times I could boot it
up!

Event Viewer shows no problems or warnings, all hardware devices have
latest
drivers with no IRQ or other conflicts, BootVis was run and the results
checked and the files optimized, SFC as well as CHKDSK revealed no system
errors, even a cloned hard drive was tried. The system was checked for
malafide files with Spybot, Ad-aware, Anti-Vir, MS Malicious Software
Remover,

The behavior persists. This PC is not on a network. Used mainly for
word-processing and light multimedia tasking, it is connected to the
Internet only when my wireless Internet EV-DO card is plugged in (borrowed
from my laptop), mostly for updates.

Any pointers on what to look for would be much appreciated.

Thanks in anticipation.

Janus


Brief PC Details:

Intel D850GBAL Motherboard
Intel 1.7 GHz P4 CPU
768 MB PC-800 RDRAM
nVidia GeForce 3 Ti-200 AGP graphics card
Hard drives - 120GB (System)
+ 180GB + 250Gb + 250GB + 250GB
(these on PCI UATA Controller Card)
Opticals - TDK 4x DVD+R
Lite-On 16x CD-RW
Pioneer 16x DVD-ROM
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2 - all updates installed

run "msconfig"
disable all start-up items, except the one's by microsoft system.
restart "normal"
then enable start-up items one at a time, until your start-up problem
returns.

HTH,
johnc

 

[Janus]

run "msconfig"
disable all start-up items, except the one's by microsoft system.
restart "normal"
then enable start-up items one at a time, until your start-up problem
returns.

HTH,
johnc

Thanks very much for the response. I did as suggested and the PC now worked
fine. Then re-enabled each non-Microsoft start-ups one by one. The PC booted
fine with all disabled services re-enabled.

Rebooted twice - all okay.

Rebooted thrice - all okay.

Rebooted next and thereafter - old problem was back!

Tried the whole thing once all over again. And this time rebooted the PC a
few times to re-check each re-enabled start-up items. Exactly the same
behavior as before - except the PC booted fine five times instead, after
re-enabling all original services! Actually I only have three non-MS
start-ups on this PC - AntiVir, nVidia Driver Control Panel Applet and the
Intel Motherboard Monitor (temp and voltages) utility.

Then I uninstalled all PCI cards and external (1394 and USB) devices, as
well as the opticals. Ran the PC with only the system drive and graphics
card (Geforce 3 Ti-200) - same behavior.

Then uninstalled the graphics card and replaced with a test card (Geforce 2
MX) - same behavior.

So, I guess the issue is not hardware related.

Very very perplexing, this one is. Maybe I might do a full reinstall of the
OS and all software!

Regards.

Janus

 

[Malke]

Thanks very much for the response. I did as suggested and the PC now
worked fine. Then re-enabled each non-Microsoft start-ups one by one.
The PC booted fine with all disabled services re-enabled.

Rebooted twice - all okay.

Rebooted thrice - all okay.

Rebooted next and thereafter - old problem was back!

Tried the whole thing once all over again. And this time rebooted the
PC a few times to re-check each re-enabled start-up items. Exactly the
same behavior as before - except the PC booted fine five times
instead, after re-enabling all original services! Actually I only have
three non-MS start-ups on this PC - AntiVir, nVidia Driver Control
Panel Applet and the Intel Motherboard Monitor (temp and voltages)
utility.

Then I uninstalled all PCI cards and external (1394 and USB) devices,
as well as the opticals. Ran the PC with only the system drive and
graphics card (Geforce 3 Ti-200) - same behavior.

Then uninstalled the graphics card and replaced with a test card
(Geforce 2 MX) - same behavior.

So, I guess the issue is not hardware related.

Very very perplexing, this one is. Maybe I might do a full reinstall
of the OS and all software!

Regards.

Janus

See if you have the Nvidia Helper Service running. If so, disable it.
Quite a few people have reported difficulties with it.

Malke