J
JK
I have spent the last two or three weeks trying to solve a difficult pc
problem and thought I would share my experience in the hope that it would
help some others. While googling for answers to my problem I saw many posts
from people who were just as frustrated as I was with similar problems.
Three weeks ago I turned on my pc for the first time that day. The machine
was cold. The boot process started normally and then just died at the XP
boot up window, the one where the little blue progress bar moves across the
screen. I tried to restart using Ctl Alt Del but the machine was locked up
solid. I noticed during the boot process that one of the hard drives made a
clicking sound. I hit the reset button and the machine booted up normally
with no problems and no hard drive clicking. Since that day, when the
machine is turned on for the first time in the morning, the same thing
happens: the first boot dies at the same spot with the hard drive clicking,
and then a reset results in a perfectly normal boot with no hard drive
clicking. If I reset the machine any time during the day while it's on, it
boots without any problems. If I turn if off for a few hours and let it
cool down, and then turn it on, the first boot fails as above.
That clicking sound bothered me because I know that it can be a sign that a
hard drive is failing. So I downloaded the Western Digital diagnostic tools
and ran several full tests including a scan of the media on all of my
drives. I have 3 drives, 2 80 gig drives on IDE port 0 and 1 200 gig SATA
drive. All of the drives passed their tests. Two of the drives, including
my C: drive are relatively new.
To eliminate the possibility that there could be a software problem I tried
booting into safe mode on the first boot of the day and the same thing
happened. The boot process died at the same spot, and a reset resulted in a
normal bootup. The last driver to load was mup.sys during the failed boot.
I did a repair install of windows xp but that did not fix the problem. The
event viewer for system events showed that everything was fine. No errors
reported. Boot logs showed no error. It looks like the problem occurs
before any logging starts.
I decided that I had a hardware problem. The first thing that came to mind
was that I had a failing power supply, however, my PSU is a relatively new
Antec Pure Power power supply rated at 550 watts. So I don't think that is
the problem. Motherboard Monitor did not indicate any power problem at all.
To eliminate the possibility that it was the SATA controller, I disabled the
SATA controller on the mobo and disconnected the power from the SATA hard
drive. That didn't fix the problem. I replaced the IDE cable for my 2 80
gig hard drives and that didn't fix the problem either.
Since all of the hard drives and cables checked out that left the
motherboard as the culprit, an A7N8X deluxe version 1.04 with an Athlon
2800+ cpu. On two occasions, rather than just letting the machine go
through the boot process first thing in the morning, I went into the bios to
the hardware monitor and waited until the cpu temperature stabilized. I
then saved and exited the bios and let the machine boot. Sure enough, no
problem. The PC completed its first boot of the day normally, no clicking
hard drives. No reset is required when the pc has a chance to warm up.
I have concluded that there is some component on my motherboard, probably
related to the IDE controller (because of the clicking hard drive(s), which
is in the process of failing. If I let the motherboard warm up a bit this
component starts to work and all is well.
I spent more than two weeks trying to sort out this problem and at times it
was very frustrating. I thought I had it solved several times, only to have
the machine lockup the following morning. I still have the problem, but
think I know what it is now. So do I replace the motherboard with the same
model, take the opportunity to upgrade to an Athlon 64 machine, or just buy
an IDE controller. Decisions decisions.
I hope sharing my experience helps some other people who have had similar
problems.
JK
problem and thought I would share my experience in the hope that it would
help some others. While googling for answers to my problem I saw many posts
from people who were just as frustrated as I was with similar problems.
Three weeks ago I turned on my pc for the first time that day. The machine
was cold. The boot process started normally and then just died at the XP
boot up window, the one where the little blue progress bar moves across the
screen. I tried to restart using Ctl Alt Del but the machine was locked up
solid. I noticed during the boot process that one of the hard drives made a
clicking sound. I hit the reset button and the machine booted up normally
with no problems and no hard drive clicking. Since that day, when the
machine is turned on for the first time in the morning, the same thing
happens: the first boot dies at the same spot with the hard drive clicking,
and then a reset results in a perfectly normal boot with no hard drive
clicking. If I reset the machine any time during the day while it's on, it
boots without any problems. If I turn if off for a few hours and let it
cool down, and then turn it on, the first boot fails as above.
That clicking sound bothered me because I know that it can be a sign that a
hard drive is failing. So I downloaded the Western Digital diagnostic tools
and ran several full tests including a scan of the media on all of my
drives. I have 3 drives, 2 80 gig drives on IDE port 0 and 1 200 gig SATA
drive. All of the drives passed their tests. Two of the drives, including
my C: drive are relatively new.
To eliminate the possibility that there could be a software problem I tried
booting into safe mode on the first boot of the day and the same thing
happened. The boot process died at the same spot, and a reset resulted in a
normal bootup. The last driver to load was mup.sys during the failed boot.
I did a repair install of windows xp but that did not fix the problem. The
event viewer for system events showed that everything was fine. No errors
reported. Boot logs showed no error. It looks like the problem occurs
before any logging starts.
I decided that I had a hardware problem. The first thing that came to mind
was that I had a failing power supply, however, my PSU is a relatively new
Antec Pure Power power supply rated at 550 watts. So I don't think that is
the problem. Motherboard Monitor did not indicate any power problem at all.
To eliminate the possibility that it was the SATA controller, I disabled the
SATA controller on the mobo and disconnected the power from the SATA hard
drive. That didn't fix the problem. I replaced the IDE cable for my 2 80
gig hard drives and that didn't fix the problem either.
Since all of the hard drives and cables checked out that left the
motherboard as the culprit, an A7N8X deluxe version 1.04 with an Athlon
2800+ cpu. On two occasions, rather than just letting the machine go
through the boot process first thing in the morning, I went into the bios to
the hardware monitor and waited until the cpu temperature stabilized. I
then saved and exited the bios and let the machine boot. Sure enough, no
problem. The PC completed its first boot of the day normally, no clicking
hard drives. No reset is required when the pc has a chance to warm up.
I have concluded that there is some component on my motherboard, probably
related to the IDE controller (because of the clicking hard drive(s), which
is in the process of failing. If I let the motherboard warm up a bit this
component starts to work and all is well.
I spent more than two weeks trying to sort out this problem and at times it
was very frustrating. I thought I had it solved several times, only to have
the machine lockup the following morning. I still have the problem, but
think I know what it is now. So do I replace the motherboard with the same
model, take the opportunity to upgrade to an Athlon 64 machine, or just buy
an IDE controller. Decisions decisions.
I hope sharing my experience helps some other people who have had similar
problems.
JK