>>STUCK On "Checking NVRAM"<<

[CmosDriver]

I'm running WinXPPro and I walked up to my computer this morning and I had an
automatic update pop-up window on my desktop out of nowhere. >or at least it
aPPeaReD to be that< I have my computer set to notify me if any new updates
are available. This particular window had a countdown timer within it. I
caught it before it counted down to zero and chose "restart later". I
continued to get ready for work and by the time i returned to my pc it had
just shutdown to restart. Now... Once it restarted, it gets to the "Checking
NVRAM" screen... and it's now STUCK THERE!!! Never had this problem before. I
have 2 XP OS's loaded on my machine and not able to access either one. (on 2
different partitions) - - - - I've taken out the CMOS battery, I've cleared
CMOS using the jumper, I've tried to get to the start up options to choose
"Last good known" BUT, Pressing F8 does absolutely nothing now and even
though i have reset it to boot from my CD drive first, so I can attempt to
boot off of my XP disk for a repair... it still goes thru the normal bootup
until it gets to freezing at NVRAM. I'm on my other desktop (HOPING) that it
won't happen to this one out of nowhere as well!!

Uh... HELP... ANYBODY!!!!! THANX N ADVANCE. Wayne B.

 

[Leonard Grey]

Malicious software ("malware") could be installed on your computer.

Make sure that your anti-malware software is running, then download the
latest signatures and run a full scan.

If you don't have comprehensive anti-malware software, that's like
driving a car without seats belts or air bags. Either way, you're
eventually going to get hammered. Install comprehensive anti-malware
software and learn how to use its features. A 'comprehensive' solution
scans for all types of malicious software in the background, on demand
and on schedule.

For now try scanning your system with /several/ of the better online
scanners, such as:
Kaspersky Antivirus (http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner)
Panda ActiveScan (http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan)

Download HijackThis from www.trendsecure.com. Run it, save a log, and
post the log at one of the many sites that support HJT, such as
spywarewarrior.com, bleepingcomputer.com, and temerc.com -- but not
here. Within a day, sometimes within an hour, you'll have one-on-one
step-by-step advice from a security expert on cleaning up any
infestations—or you'll have a clean bill of health from the volunteer
expert.

Even the best detection and removal software can't fix every malware
infection. If none of the above remove the infection, you may want to
show the computer to a professional.

 

[CmosDriver]

I forgot to add that I have McAfee... Fully updated (automatic downloads).
Regularly scan with Adaware and Spybot along with Registry Booster. And as I
formentioned in my 1st post.... I'm not able to boot into windows at all so I
wouldn't be able to download anything at this point.

 

[Leonard Grey]

Your call. But, FWIW:

Some people like McAfee, some hate it. But the fact is - as I mentioned
- no one product can do it all.

Ad-Aware and Spybot (S & D) are consistently rated near the bottom for
effectiveness in test after test. Plus, if you want to use a second
product for on-demand scans, they need to look for all types of malware.

Registry Booster - like all registry cleaners - is a waste of time. And
a registry cleaner doesn't protect you against malware.

I really hope there's no malware on your machine. All I have to go on is
your description. And you described malware. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Alister]

Your call. But, FWIW:

Some people like McAfee, some hate it. But the fact is - as I mentioned
- no one product can do it all.

Ad-Aware and Spybot (S & D) are consistently rated near the bottom for
effectiveness in test after test. Plus, if you want to use a second
product for on-demand scans, they need to look for all types of malware.

Registry Booster - like all registry cleaners - is a waste of time. And
a registry cleaner doesn't protect you against malware.

I really hope there's no malware on your machine. All I have to go on is
your description. And you described malware. I hope I'm wrong.

Leonard, you should really read his post.

He has said twice that he cannot boot the computer as far as windows,
so
an esoteric discussion on the merits of various anti-malware products
is not a lot of help.

Yes he may have malware on there, but I doubt if that is the cause of
this issue.

It sounds more like he has a hardware / driver error.

I would be inclined to try removing and reseating your memory and try
a reboot each time.

Alister

 

[Jim]

Your call. But, FWIW:

Some people like McAfee, some hate it. But the fact is - as I mentioned
- no one product can do it all.

Ad-Aware and Spybot (S & D) are consistently rated near the bottom for
effectiveness in test after test. Plus, if you want to use a second
product for on-demand scans, they need to look for all types of malware.

Registry Booster - like all registry cleaners - is a waste of time. And
a registry cleaner doesn't protect you against malware.

I really hope there's no malware on your machine. All I have to go on is
your description. And you described malware. I hope I'm wrong.

Leonard, you should really read his post.

He has said twice that he cannot boot the computer as far as windows,
so
an esoteric discussion on the merits of various anti-malware products
is not a lot of help.

Yes he may have malware on there, but I doubt if that is the cause of
this issue.

It sounds more like he has a hardware / driver error.

I would be inclined to try removing and reseating your memory and try
a reboot each time.

Alister


================================
NVRAM = Non Volatile RAM. Only the BIOS needs such a device. These days,
the BIOS and its assorted assistants are soldered in place. The only thing
you can replace (short of replacing the whole motherboard) is the battery.
My belief is that replacing the motherboard is the OP's only option, but I
would certainly take the machine to a professional repair place before
replacing the motherboard.

Jim

 

[Alister]

Leonard, you should really read his post.

He has said twice that he cannot boot the computer as far as windows,
so
an esoteric discussion on the merits of various anti-malware products
is not a lot of help.

Yes he may have malware on there, but I doubt if that is the cause of
this issue.

It sounds more like he has a hardware / driver error.

I would be inclined to try removing and reseating your memory and try
a reboot each time.

Alister

================================
NVRAM = Non Volatile RAM. Only the BIOS needs such a device. These days,
the BIOS and its assorted assistants are soldered in place. The only thing
you can replace (short of replacing the whole motherboard) is the battery..
My belief is that replacing the motherboard is the OP's only option, but I
would certainly take the machine to a professional repair place before
replacing the motherboard.

Jim

Yep, I would try a few things first though - hence removing the memory
- if the motherboard is ok it should complain
with no memory in it - beeps etc

Alister

 

[Alister]

I'm running WinXPPro and I walked up to my computer this morning and I had an
automatic update pop-up window on my desktop out of nowhere. >or at least it
aPPeaReD to be that< I have my computer set to notify me if any new updates
are available. This particular window had a countdown timer within it. I
caught it before it counted down to zero and chose "restart later". I
continued to get ready for work and by the time i returned to my pc it had
just shutdown to restart. Now... Once it restarted, it gets to the "Checking
NVRAM" screen... and it's now STUCK THERE!!! Never had this problem before. I
have 2 XP OS's loaded on my machine and not able to access either one. (on 2
different partitions) - - - - I've taken out the CMOS battery, I've cleared
CMOS using the jumper, I've tried to get to the start up options to choose
"Last good known" BUT, Pressing F8 does absolutely nothing now and even
though i have reset it to boot from my CD drive first, so I can attempt to
boot off of my XP disk for a repair... it still goes thru the normal bootup
until it gets to freezing at NVRAM. I'm on my other desktop (HOPING) that it
won't happen to this one out of nowhere as well!!

Uh... HELP... ANYBODY!!!!! THANX N ADVANCE. Wayne B.

CmosDriver can you get as far as the BIOS setup screen?

Alister

 

[CmosDriver]

Yes, that's about the only thing that it will let me do right now. That's how
I was able to reset the bootup order once I had cleared the CMOS.

 

[CmosDriver]

Hi Jim,

I tried reseating both sticks seperately and together... No Luck.

CmosDriver

 

[Alister]

Yes, that's about the only thing that it will let me do right now. That's how
I was able to reset the bootup order once I had cleared the CMOS.

Well that is encouraging, as it should mean the motherboard and
processor are working.

From the BIOS can the PC identify your hard drives and CD / DVD drive
(s) correctly?

You don't say whether your hard drive is SATA or IDE but it could be
that the driver is the issue.

Does your hard drive spin up and does the drive light flash whilst the
machine is booting?

If you are happy rooting around inside the machine, try booting it
with the hard drive cable
disconnected from the motherboard header - see if it complains about
not finding a fixed disk.

Did you try booting the machine with no memory installed? and did it
beep at you if you did?

The point of these suggestions is to see just how far through the boot
process it is getting in
order to narrow down the fault.

Let me know the results of these attempts.

Alister.

 

[CmosDriver]

Well that is encouraging, as it should mean the motherboard and
processor are working.

From the BIOS can the PC identify your hard drives and CD / DVD drive
(s) correctly?

You don't say whether your hard drive is SATA or IDE but it could be
that the driver is the issue.

Does your hard drive spin up and does the drive light flash whilst the
machine is booting?

If you are happy rooting around inside the machine, try booting it
with the hard drive cable
disconnected from the motherboard header - see if it complains about
not finding a fixed disk.

Did you try booting the machine with no memory installed? and did it
beep at you if you did?

The point of these suggestions is to see just how far through the boot
process it is getting in
order to narrow down the fault.

Let me know the results of these attempts.

Alister.

Within the BIOS and the bootup screens both identify all drives correctly. I
have 2 SATA drives and 2cd/dvd drives connected. - - Beeps came in loud and
clear once i rebooted w/o the RAM installed. (actually one continuous beep)-
- Both drives spin normal and drive led flashes. - - When I disconnect the
HDs i get... "Reboot and select proper boot device......" At that point I
left them disconnected and since I have only 1 IDE connection on my mobo I
connected my 40gig Maxtor along w/my cd/dvd drive on that one channel to see
if It would allow me to load XP on a completely different HD, but it still
stopped when it got to NVRAM. I >was< able to boot off of the XP cd while NO
HDs were connected, BUT... it couldn't finish. It stalled midway in the
process.

 

[Alister]

Within the BIOS and the bootup screens both identify all drives correctly. I
have 2 SATA drives and 2cd/dvd drives connected. - - Beeps came in loud and
clear once i rebooted w/o the RAM installed. (actually one continuous beep)-
- Both drives spin normal and drive led flashes. - - When I disconnect the
HDs i get... "Reboot and select proper boot device......" At that point I
left them disconnected and since I have only 1 IDE connection on my mobo I
connected my 40gig Maxtor along w/my cd/dvd drive on that one channel to see
if It would allow me to load XP on a completely different HD, but it still
stopped when it got to NVRAM. I >was< able to boot off of the XP cd while NO
HDs were connected, BUT... it couldn't finish. It stalled midway in the
process.

Hi Wayne,

Well that is progress of a sort

Couple of things to point out:

Firstly, when the computer is showing the "Checking NVRAM" message,
what it is doing is comparing
the list of hardware it stored last time it booted, with what it can
find connected - thus it will normally say
Update Success or something similar when it has finished doing that.
Now because you reset the CMOS
that list is probably blank.
The second thing is that a lot of SATA motherboards won't ignore a
SATA channel if it is enabled in the BIOS
unlike IDE where they are always enabled but it just ignores them if
nothing is found.
If your SATA channels are enabled, it expects to find something on
them and throws its toys out
of the pram if it can't find any.

Could you disconnect all your drives, and go into the BIOS and disable
your SATA channels, and then
just connect your Maxtor as Primary master on the IDE with no CD / DVD
drives and try a reboot.

What we are trying to do is get it to successfully pass the "Checking
NVRAM" stage.

Did you say there was an OS on the Maxtor or is it blank?

I think your problem is possibly the SATA connections - could be a
faulty mobo still but
lets rule out that it's not just your drives.

Alister

 

[Ian]

Ad-Aware and Spybot (S & D) are consistently rated near the bottom for
effectiveness in test after test.

Hmmm. Can you point us to instances where people have said that?

 

[CmosDriver]

Alister,

I went to "OnChip S-ATA Controller" and "disabled" within the BIOS. The
Maxtor HD has no OS on it and got the same results (NVRAM) when I tried to
run just the HD and the XP disk. It totally bypasses the cd drive, it's not
even looking at it. - - - I may be offbase w/my suspicions but I have never
seen a "Windows Update pop up window" w/a countdown timer in it. I don't know
how, but I believe something had to have crept onto my computer. Are you or
anyone else out there familiar wthat sort of window from Microsoft pertaining
to updates??

 

[Leonard Grey]

Still flailing away, I see.

When Automatic Update is not enabled, Windows Update displays a progress
bar -- not a timer -- on the bottom. Above the progress bar is an open
area that tells you when each update has downloaded and when each has
installed. No window displays when you select Automatic Update. (Updates
download and install in the background at the time you choose.)

 

[Alister]

Alister,

I went to "OnChip S-ATA Controller" and "disabled" within the BIOS. The
Maxtor HD has no OS on it and got the same results (NVRAM) when I tried to
run just the HD and the XP disk. It totally bypasses the cd drive, it's not
even looking at it. - - - I may be offbase w/my suspicions but I have never
seen a "Windows Update pop up window" w/a countdown timer in it. I don't know
how, but I believe something had to have crept onto my computer. Are you or
anyone else out there familiar wthat sort of window from Microsoft pertaining
to updates??

If you had Automatic update enabled, you would get a taskbar
notification (on a yellow background) that an update had taken
place which required a reboot, but this would not include a countdown
timer, or you may get a similar message that windows
had rebooted itself, but again that would not contain a timer.
Windows update does not use Popup Windows, although it does sometimes
use a standard grey message box.
On that basis, I agree that your suspicions could be correct, and that
you could have been infected with a virus / malware of some kind.

It is possible - though rare - for a virus to corrupt the Flash BIOS,
which would give similar symptoms to those
you describe - and then the only remedy is to replace the motherboard.

However, the symptoms you describe are much more likely to be as a
result of a hardware error.

The things I have been suggesting you do have been to try and identify
whether you had such an error.

If it is a virus, it could well have wiped the Master boot record of
your hard drive - making it unbootable,
but the majority of your data will still be intact and recoverable by
using fixboot and fixmbr utilities.

Alister

 

[CmosDriver]

Unfortunately it seems that FLaiLiNg is the only thing left I have to resort
to. I haven't had this mobo and the first SATA HD a good month and a
half and now I might have to toss the mobo. I just bought the 2nd SATA drive
(500gig) for extra storage 4 days ago on the 10th. I'm (NOW) thinking in the
back of my mind that maybe all of this has something to do with that drive
but... I've had no problems at all until that strange countdown update window
popped up the other morning. I just had XP to initialize it and off I went.
Didn't load anything from the disk that came with the drive. I'm about ready
to throw my hands up and write a concession speech.

 

[Leonard Grey]

Some talking points for your concession speech:

"How To Keep Your Computer Malware Free"
http://www.howtodothings.com/computers-internet/how-to-keep-your-computer-malware-free
---
Leonard Grey
Errare Humanum Est

Unfortunately it seems that FLaiLiNg is the only thing left I have to resort
to. I haven't had this mobo and the first SATA HD a good month and a
half and now I might have to toss the mobo. I just bought the 2nd SATA drive
(500gig) for extra storage 4 days ago on the 10th. I'm (NOW) thinking in the
back of my mind that maybe all of this has something to do with that drive
but... I've had no problems at all until that strange countdown update window
popped up the other morning. I just had XP to initialize it and off I went.
Didn't load anything from the disk that came with the drive. I'm about ready
to throw my hands up and write a concession speech.

 

[Ian]

Hmmm. Can you point us to instances where people have said that?

As I suspected. Unsubstantiated bluster!

Sigh.