mysterious system halt during boot

  • Thread starter Thread starter mdawg414
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M

mdawg414

I have a homebuilt machine running Win XP Pro SP2 that had been working
fine. When i came downstairs today, the machine was stuck on the bootup
screen. My BIOS information (Phoenix v6.00) was displayed on the top
and underneath that my processor information (Pentium 4 2.66) was
displayed underneath that. Everything there was normal. However,
normally underneath the processor info the memory test is displayed but
not this time. The part that really made me curious was that at the
bottom of the screen where it normally says "DEL to enter setup, ESC to
skip memory test" this time it only said "DEL to enter setup, ESC to
sk" and the rest was missing. Ctrl-Alt-Del wont even restart the
computer at that point. Its either pull the plug or hold the power
button down for 5 secs. I had 2 sticks of 512 DDRam that i tried
replacing with other sticks....same problem. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt
 
I have a homebuilt machine running Win XP Pro SP2 that had been working
fine. When i came downstairs today, the machine was stuck on the bootup
screen. My BIOS information (Phoenix v6.00) was displayed on the top and
underneath that my processor information (Pentium 4 2.66) was displayed
underneath that. Everything there was normal. However, normally underneath
the processor info the memory test is displayed but not this time. The
part that really made me curious was that at the bottom of the screen
where it normally says "DEL to enter setup, ESC to skip memory test" this
time it only said "DEL to enter setup, ESC to sk" and the rest was
missing. Ctrl-Alt-Del wont even restart the computer at that point. Its
either pull the plug or hold the power button down for 5 secs. I had 2
sticks of 512 DDRam that i tried replacing with other sticks....same
problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt
Click to expand...

Usual suspects faulty ram or pending psu failure. Memtest86 for memory.
 
I have a homebuilt machine running Win XP Pro SP2 that had been working
fine. When i came downstairs today, the machine was stuck on the bootup
screen. My BIOS information (Phoenix v6.00) was displayed on the top
and underneath that my processor information (Pentium 4 2.66) was
displayed underneath that. Everything there was normal. However,
normally underneath the processor info the memory test is displayed but
not this time. The part that really made me curious was that at the
bottom of the screen where it normally says "DEL to enter setup, ESC to
skip memory test" this time it only said "DEL to enter setup, ESC to
sk" and the rest was missing. Ctrl-Alt-Del wont even restart the
computer at that point. Its either pull the plug or hold the power
button down for 5 secs. I had 2 sticks of 512 DDRam that i tried
replacing with other sticks....same problem. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt
Click to expand...

this is a fairly regular occurrence with my comp. I believe one of the
connectors is loose and iffy.

I power down by holding the on/off button for 5 seconds, then switch off at
wall socket and remove case covers. Earth yourself out by touching the bare
metal case.

One at a time, disconnect then reconnect all connectors to the mobo and hard
drive(s)

replace case and power up.........

what happens now

dj
 
hope this doesnt double post but its been a day and my last post hasnt
showed up

jaster- i couldnt test the memory in that machine because the actual
startup process never gets to where it will load from a floppy. so i
took the memory out and put it in another machine, ran memtest, and no
errors came up. i also tried replacing the power supply but the same
problem happened

harry- tried unplugging everything even though it was only 2 IDE
cables, the power supply connectors to the MB and a couple of fan and
led connectors but the same problem still happened. i also took out all
my pci cards but nothing changed

i shouldve mentioned this in my first post but regarding beep sequence,
everythings normal...one beep during startup. also, my video card
information is displayed before the BIOS info is so i think that is
working correctly. Pretty much im wondering/thinking its the
motherboard but i would like to know for sure before i go buy a new
one. any further help is greatly appreciated.

matt
 
Jaster- I couldnt run memtest on that machine because it never actually
got to a bootup portion of the starting sequence. So i took the memory
out, put it in another machine, then ran memtest and no errors were
found. The power supply failure interests me though. I will try and
replace the power supply next.

Harry- replaced all connectors, however it didnt seem like a lot, just
the two ide cables, the power supply connector, and a couple of front
usb and pwrbtn connectors. But after doing that the same problem
occurred.

I should probably also mention that when turning on the computer, i get
one beep and the video card information is displayed before all of the
BIOS info is. My video card is nVidia GeForce 5600 @128MB.

Again thanks for the help and quick responses

matt
 
wow problem solved
i feel incredibly stupid but the entire problem was my new USB thumb
drive
i totally forgot thats what was different but once i unplugged that,
everythings normal
thanks for the help

matt
 
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