Windows Boot Problem

[Scott Chambers (TOTEM)]

Since purchasing a new PC through ebay, I have had no end of problems. These
have all meant have to reinstall Win2K about 10 times in 10 months. The
latest is that having booted up - I get to the 'starting windows' screen.
Sometimes all is fine and windows starts properly and I'll get to my
desktop. other times, once the windows is starting message appears, the
screen flickers to black momentarily and then appears a striped screen. I
then have to restart. This also happens when I try to run Championship
Manager 03/04 - the program starts okay but then crashes to this striped
screen. Have tried to run Fix-It Utilities hardware test, and although it
starts to go through the test, inevitably to crashes to the aforementioned
striped screen. I guess it may be my video card (geforce GTS 2 pro), however
I am concerned it may be a hard drive problem or my CPU overheating (Athlon
AMD 1600 - that runs at 2000).

Any chance of a theory.

 

[SaltPeter]

Since purchasing a new PC through ebay, I have had no end of problems. These
have all meant have to reinstall Win2K about 10 times in 10 months. The
latest is that having booted up - I get to the 'starting windows' screen.
Sometimes all is fine and windows starts properly and I'll get to my
desktop. other times, once the windows is starting message appears, the
screen flickers to black momentarily and then appears a striped screen. I
then have to restart. This also happens when I try to run Championship
Manager 03/04 - the program starts okay but then crashes to this striped
screen. Have tried to run Fix-It Utilities hardware test, and although it
starts to go through the test, inevitably to crashes to the aforementioned
striped screen. I guess it may be my video card (geforce GTS 2 pro), however
I am concerned it may be a hard drive problem or my CPU overheating (Athlon
AMD 1600 - that runs at 2000).

Any chance of a theory.

Striped screens usually indicate a problem with video adapter memory. My
guess is that overclocking the CPU, which may modify your basic standard PCI
and AGP frequency and seriously increase rcase heat issues + modify the
power load is causing the issue. Thats without mentioning whether the CPU
and Geforce fans are indeed still operating and sufficient to dissipate the
increased levels.

Overclocking is a bad idea, specially with a processor that already runs hot
when within specs. Since the CPU is NOT the bottleneck on your system,
overclocking usually adds "wait_states" to the CPU's operational cycles,
therefore usually slowing down a computer as a whole, freezing the system
when hardware is operating beyond its limits and eventually causing
permanent cascading hardware damage starting at the CPU core.

Your symptoms are the proof that a properly configured system running within
specs can achieve an infinitely better result by modifying other parameters
(related to bios and OS). Not to mention that OEMS will positively detect
and refuse a replacement or repair of a device with overclocking damage on
it.

 

[Tim]

-----Original Message-----
Since purchasing a new PC through ebay, I have had no end of problems. These
have all meant have to reinstall Win2K about 10 times in 10 months. The
latest is that having booted up - I get to the 'starting windows' screen.
Sometimes all is fine and windows starts properly and I'll get to my
desktop. other times, once the windows is starting message appears, the
screen flickers to black momentarily and then appears a striped screen. I
then have to restart. This also happens when I try to run Championship
Manager 03/04 - the program starts okay but then crashes to this striped
screen. Have tried to run Fix-It Utilities hardware test, and although it
starts to go through the test, inevitably to crashes to the aforementioned
striped screen. I guess it may be my video card (geforce GTS 2 pro), however
I am concerned it may be a hard drive problem or my CPU overheating (Athlon
AMD 1600 - that runs at 2000).

Any chance of a theory.

.
Run chkdsk /r for full surface scan of harddrive

 

[Scott Chambers (TOTEM)]

So if overclocking might be the problem, how do I then revert the PC to it's
original (not overclocked state), as I'm not really bothered by it running
at anymore than 1600mhz

 

[Scott Chambers (TOTEM)]

have done this on many occasions - always comes back that any errors have
been fixed.

 

[Bob I]

Depends entirely on the motherboard and BIOS you have. The manual for
the motherboard will show you where and how.

 

[Steve Nielsen]

I've seen more striped-screen problems caused by faulty system RAM than
anything else. But I agree on the overclocking issue, especialy with AMD
procesors which traditionally tend to run hotter anyway.

Steve

 

[SaltPeter]

So if overclocking might be the problem, how do I then revert the PC to it's
original (not overclocked state), as I'm not really bothered by it running
at anymore than 1600mhz

It depends on the motherboard involved. You should be able to modify the CPU
multiplier through either bios setup or via jumpers on the board itself. Get
the motherboard manual at mobo's manufacturer's website for the exact
settings in the case you are reduced to reading a bunch of tiny reference
tables printed on the motherboard's component side.

You should be able to identify the board maker and exact model through
carefull inspection.

 

[Scott Chambers (TOTEM)]

Motherboard is shuttle AK32A - applied the registry hack for the geforce
graphics cards to chcek the clock settings - they seem to be running at the
default - 200mhz & 330mhz - not too sure where to go next mind

 

[SaltPeter]

Motherboard is shuttle AK32A - applied the registry hack for the geforce
graphics cards to chcek the clock settings - they seem to be running at the
default - 200mhz & 330mhz - not too sure where to go next mind

If you set the mobo and CPU to run within specs, there are still a few
things you can check.

First, a bios upgrade might help. Verify whether the OS is running with an
ACPI HAL with shared virtual IRQ steering (multiple devices on same IRQ). If
not ACPI, most motherboards used shared slots (check shuttle documentation).
The AGP port, for example will share with PCI#1 and sometimes PCI#1 and
PCI#2. So that no devices should be using the shared PCI slot(s) while AGP
port is occupied. Its ok to have one of 2 shared PCI slots if AGP shares
with 1 and 2.
Last, reseat the video adapter.

Since that GeForce can get quite hot, don't be surprised if the device did
indeed fail following prolonged exposure to an overclocked AMD.

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