Windows 2000 hangs at startup after processor change

  • Thread starter Thread starter Head Hunter
  • Start date Start date
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Head Hunter

Ok, guys, I have a wierd one here. A friend of mine is running a home-built
with an Athlon 2400+ XP CPU. He wanted to upgrade his CPU higher, and his
manual said he could go upt to a 3000+. I found him one on E-bay and sent
it to him. The CPU would start, and he could go into the BIOS, but it
wouldn't boot. Oh, well, he swiched back to his old CPU.

However, now when his system starts, it goes through the BIOS, he gets the
single beep, it goes to the black "Starting Windows" screen, the white bar
goes across the bottom of the screen, and the system stops. No error
messages, no other beeps, nothing. He left it sitting for 2 hours one to
see if it was just thinking really hard. Nothing.

We have tried resetting the BIOS to defaults. No change. We cleared the
CMOS. No change. We disconnected the cables and re-seated them. No
change. He tried creating the 4 startup floppies on another computer and
using them. It goes through all 4 floppies, gets to the blue Starting
Windows screen, and stops. We can't swap momory, because his motherboard
only has one DIMM and, with only one, it only works in one particular memory
slot.

He can't re-install Windows at the moment because his CD has a crack. I am
sending him mine (he has him own key code) but he is in Colorado and I am in
Calif, so he won't get until next week. I am also sending him a spare HD I
have that has Win2000 on it, in case he need to boot from it to repair his
drive.

Can anyone out there give me any other ideas? We are stumped. We saw in
one old post on the ASUS web site about running fixmbr, but that assumes his
CD works and/or it will boot from the floppies.

HELP? Anyone? Thanks in advance.
 
You mean repair? Win2000 doesn't have system restore.
Click to expand...

I went from 98 to XP. So....

If it boots in safe mode, it points to corrupt drivers/system files
blocking normal bootup. So any procedure that restore/repairs these
critical files should help. You can also try disabling startup
programs. Also disabling non critical hardware in the device manager
should help - network devices, display adapters etc,.
 
Does the system work in safe mode (F8)? If yes, then try system restore.
Click to expand...
No, it does the same thing. Has the white line going across, gets to
the end, and stops.

Also, I told him what I posted and have a correction. When he put in
the new chip and turned it on, the fans turned on, but nothing came up
on the screen. He spoke with ASUS and they said he might be able to run
it with a BIOS update, but to contact Microsoft for this problem. We
don't want to try a BIOS update until we get this fixed, in case it
screws things up even more. We want to fix this problem before changing
anything else.

He was told the fdisk/mbr command from Win98 or WinME startup disks
would also work in place of the fixmbr from Win2000. He downloaded
startup disks for both from bootdisk.com, but it didn't seem to help.
 
Does the system work in safe mode (F8)? If yes, then try system restore.
Click to expand...
No, it does the same thing. Has the white line going across, gets to
the end, and stops.

Also, I told him what I posted and have a correction. When he put in
the new chip and turned it on, the fans turned on, but nothing came up
on the screen. He spoke with ASUS and they said he might be able to run
it with a BIOS update, but to contact Microsoft for this problem. We
don't want to try a BIOS update until we get this fixed, in case it
screws things up even more. We want to fix this problem before changing
anything else.

He was told the fdisk/mbr command from Win98 or WinME startup disks
would also work in place of the fixmbr from Win2000. He downloaded
startup disks for both from bootdisk.com, but it didn't seem to help.
 
bios update to offically accept the new CPU

there would be no reason for windows to be the culprit, and certainally a
re install is not going to fix it.
 
But, why wouldn't it work again after putting the original CPU into it?

Also, my friend did that over the weekend. No change.
 
So what in the BIOS could be causing this problem? It is an ASUS board, not
sure of exact model number.
 
Head Hunter said:
So what in the BIOS could be causing this problem? It is an ASUS board, not
sure of exact model number.
Click to expand...
All I can say is try either re-installing the original BIOS or updating to
the newer version. Can't think why the original cpu won't work.
You put it back with heatsink and new thermal paste?
 
Yes, we did. And I have more information. My friend got my package
including an original Win2000 CD. He puts in the CD, computer boots from
the CD, he hit F10 to enter repair console, and the computer locks at the
same place. Is that the right way to enter the repair console, or do you do
it from Advanced Options?

Personally, I am starting to think the problem is in the BIOS settings.
Maybe, when he put in the new CPU, it auto-changed something that doesn't
work now. But, I would think reseting the BIOS to defaults should have
fixed that. Although, when he did that and booted the PC, he had to allow
the BIOS to reset itself to what it thought was correct before he could
boot. Maybe something isn't set right.
 
Head Hunter said:
But, why wouldn't it work again after putting the original CPU into it?
Click to expand...

Did he reset the cmos and bios ?
Also, my friend did that over the weekend. No change.
Click to expand...

Try resetting the cmos, that should fix it. If it doesnt,
he's broken something when he changed the cpu.
 
Head Hunter said:
So what in the BIOS could be causing this problem?
Click to expand...

Modern bios keep track of what settings were used between boots.
Thats why you see the Updating ESCD line at the bottom of the
black bios screen at boot time after you have changed hardware.
It is an ASUS board, not sure of exact model number.
Click to expand...

Most likely the current bios doesnt support the new cpu
and things got rather comprehensively screwed with the
ESCD data when that was tried and thats why the old
cpu doesnt work anymore.

Resetting the cmos and the bios should fix
that and allow the old cpu to work again.

Then work out what the motherboard is using Everest and
get the latest bios off the Asus site and try the new cpu again.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181
 
Or he didnt manage to reset them both properly.
Click to expand...

Worth trying removing everything except the hard
drive with the original cpu and seeing if 2K will boot.
With the smallest amount of memory possible too.

Something may have got disturbed.
 
He received the stuff I sent him, including a hard drive that had Win2000 on
it. When he put it in, it got past the Starting Windows screen, to the
white Windows 2000 screen. But, and I should have expected this, he then
got an Unaccessable Boot Device stop error. My hardware was different from
his. But it got past it.

He can't even do a repair because he doesn't have an ERD and, when he tries
to go past that, it hangs.

He also has the Ultimate Boot CD (I burned him a copy) and has run the
memory tests, and some of the others, and the PC passed. I also though
maybe IDE channel 1 may have gotten hosed somehow, so I had him move the
hard drive to channel 2. No change. Last I heard he was going to use a
WinME floppy and fdisk to remove the partitions and try to start from a
fresh hard drive. I will report back with the results.
 
Head Hunter said:
He received the stuff I sent him, including a hard drive that had
Win2000 on it. When he put it in, it got past the Starting Windows
screen, to the white Windows 2000 screen. But, and I should have
expected this, he then got an Unaccessable Boot Device stop error.
My hardware was different from his. But it got past it.
Click to expand...
He can't even do a repair because he doesn't have
an ERD and, when he tries to go past that, it hangs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats the big downside with 2K, its nowhere
near as asy to handle a motherboard swap and
that is effectively what you did with the hard drive.

It can still be done tho, but not now he has the drive.
He also has the Ultimate Boot CD (I burned him a copy) and has
run the memory tests, and some of the others, and the PC passed.
Click to expand...

I would have sent him a Bart PE too.
I also though maybe IDE channel 1 may have gotten hosed somehow,
so I had him move the hard drive to channel 2. No change. Last I
heard he was going to use a WinME floppy and fdisk to remove
the partitions and try to start from a fresh hard drive.
Click to expand...

You dont need to do that, the 2K install can wipe delete the partitions.

Or you can wipe the drive with clearhdd.
I will report back with the results.
Click to expand...

I'd still try a boot with the original cpu and hard drive and
nothing else in the PC. And a safe boot too. It may well be
that the reason 2K is stalling is because there's something
hardware wise that the driver for that hardware doesnt like
now since the UBCD seems to work fine.
 
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