Malagor
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Random Rebooting followed by Errors booting off windows CD's
After I finished playing an game and started surfin the net my tower shut down and started rebooting on me. It wasnt a proper shut down. It would black out like someone kicked the power cord then come back on the boot screen and load up again. It continued doing this numerous times. Then i started recieving blue screen errors stating the bios was not acpi(if i remember correctly) capable and to update the bios.
I assumed something with windows got messed up so I flashed the bios(was planing on it anyway to recognise my 200gig hd), then proceeded to format and reinstall windows. It was up and running fine for a good 4-5 hours then it started rebooting again, followed by the blue screens again.
Now when i put the windows disks in the drive too boot off cd it brings up errors when trying to load the setup on. With my XP cd it loads then says one of the files has been corrupted. With 2000 cd it pops up an error loading one of the system files from the cd.
I have pretty much assumed now that it is something hardware related since it started doing it again after format and clean install, and now with the errors trying to load off CD.
I did install a new 200 gig hd after my old one went bad, but that had been working fine for a good 2 or 3 weeks before it did this reboot, so I dont think it was installed improperly or bad to start with.
I dont have any other computer available to swap parts with to test them, so Im mainly wondering if theres anything obvious wrong that im not catching onto, or if theres any diagnostics software that will check the hardware via a boot disk or such.
I assumed something with windows got messed up so I flashed the bios(was planing on it anyway to recognise my 200gig hd), then proceeded to format and reinstall windows. It was up and running fine for a good 4-5 hours then it started rebooting again, followed by the blue screens again.
Now when i put the windows disks in the drive too boot off cd it brings up errors when trying to load the setup on. With my XP cd it loads then says one of the files has been corrupted. With 2000 cd it pops up an error loading one of the system files from the cd.
I have pretty much assumed now that it is something hardware related since it started doing it again after format and clean install, and now with the errors trying to load off CD.
I did install a new 200 gig hd after my old one went bad, but that had been working fine for a good 2 or 3 weeks before it did this reboot, so I dont think it was installed improperly or bad to start with.
I dont have any other computer available to swap parts with to test them, so Im mainly wondering if theres anything obvious wrong that im not catching onto, or if theres any diagnostics software that will check the hardware via a boot disk or such.
Well well.... at my next page I stumbled over this gem:
If your system reports this error then reboot it and wait for the prompt about pressing F6 (to use other mass storage devices).
At this point press F7 (not F6) so that setup will install APM power management in place of ACPI power management. Installation should then continue to completion successfully.
If your system reports this error then reboot it and wait for the prompt about pressing F6 (to use other mass storage devices).
At this point press F7 (not F6) so that setup will install APM power management in place of ACPI power management. Installation should then continue to completion successfully.
yes you can force xp to install another hal by.....
1) boot form the cd like you were going to install xp when it says to press f6 for scsi blah blah press f5 thats f5 not f6 keep pressing f5 untill a option comes up to install a p486i or somthing along those lines and then there is the option other...... select the first one (with the 486i in it) and coninue your install like normal
should work
1) boot form the cd like you were going to install xp when it says to press f6 for scsi blah blah press f5 thats f5 not f6 keep pressing f5 untill a option comes up to install a p486i or somthing along those lines and then there is the option other...... select the first one (with the 486i in it) and coninue your install like normal
should work
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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when you get the BSOD(blue screen of death), what is the error message... this might finger the problem right away !
yours
Francois IT
yours
Francois IT
Dry connections in ram sockets and pci slots can cause this too. Clean and reset all pci cards and ram. Power supply is next likely culpret. They aren't expensive and its handy to have a spare. Just because the hard disk is new don't discount it. I would go to the web site of your new hard disk manufacturer and download any diagnostic tools and run them too.
Do you know what caused your first disk to fail? I had a similar incident and traced it down to the hard disk caddy area getting too hot. Sometimes BIOS can report the temperature, otherwise a programme like
http://www.sisoftware.net
can give you hints. Something quite minor on the outside, I find, can cause the airflow to alter to the detriment of the inside. If a hard disk is starting to fail (Smart has never warned me once), running scandisk often will reveal problems. The blue screen of death normally reports errors in kernel32.
I know it doesn't seem to fit your problems, but there is a worm than causes machines to reboot if you surf the web for a long time without a firewall. Quite how clever it is in preventing you reinstalling the OS I couldn't say.
http://www.sisoftware.net
can give you hints. Something quite minor on the outside, I find, can cause the airflow to alter to the detriment of the inside. If a hard disk is starting to fail (Smart has never warned me once), running scandisk often will reveal problems. The blue screen of death normally reports errors in kernel32.
I know it doesn't seem to fit your problems, but there is a worm than causes machines to reboot if you surf the web for a long time without a firewall. Quite how clever it is in preventing you reinstalling the OS I couldn't say.
format the HDD first then install
ASKER
"It would seem at first glance that your BIOS does not conform to the current ACPI spec, or, even harder to fix, some of your mobo circuitry does not meet the spec.
Can you let us know your system spec. If it's an old mobo then maybe XP isn't the way."
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It didnt pop up these errors until numerous forced reboots later, so Im of the mind that it only did that cause the improper reboots screwed something up with the windows.
I use an Elite Groups K7S5A motherboard and the most recent bios version from their website.
It didnt do this with just XP, I had windows 2000 on it originally when these proplems started.
I formatting then reinstalled using my new XP disk after the errors starting thinking it was something that got messed up with windows 2000, but then it started doing it again with windows XP.
__________________________
"If you are unable to swap parts out, the best you can do is test the memory and replace drivers. Run the diagnostic from www.memtest86.com, but be aware that passing the diagnostic (which can take hours) doesn't mean the memory is good; you would need known good memory to confirm that. For the drivers, you can try a repair install: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_install.htm "
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Thanks for the link to the memory tester, ill try that once I get a chance. As for the drivers it did this even after i formatted 2000 off it and tryed installing a new copy of XP. So I tend to think its not a driver problem since it happened twice with 2 clean installs.
Plus the computer had been running fine for quite awhile, Ive had it for 2-3 years with no real problems. Only thing i changed was the harddrive recently, which ran fine for a good 2-3 weeks before this happend.
__________________________
when you get the BSOD(blue screen of death), what is the error message... this might finger the problem right away !
I dont know what the error number is anymore, I dont get the blue screen anymore cause now I have formatted my harddrive but cant reinstall cause both my xp and 2000 disks are bringing up errors when copying over the setupfiles to start the install. Not the actual windows files, but when its loading the setup program, when its loading drivers and such.
__________________________
"Dry connections in ram sockets and pci slots can cause this too. Clean and reset all pci cards and ram. Power supply is next likely culpret."
My case is actually quite clean, I have a lian li case with a filter in the front intake that collects the dust and such. Im actually quite impressed with the case, even after 2-3 years the inside looks brand new.
As for the powersupply id rather not replace it unless I know for sure that is the problem. Im a poor college student, you know how that goes. ;)
"Just because the hard disk is new don't discount it."
I didnt discount it cause it was new, I discounted it because it was installed and everything was running fine for a good 2-3 weeks before this started.
__________________________
"Do you know what caused your first disk to fail?"
I have no idea what went wrong. I came home from class and my computer was sitting at the boot up screen saying disk read error. Apparently it had messed up and forced itself to reboot while i was gone and got stuck at the boot up since it couldnt read the disk anymore. Right now that harddrive is sitting off in a pile of junk. ;)
"Quite how clever it is in preventing you reinstalling the OS I couldn't say."
Aye, and ive formatted it twice since it first happend, so anything on there should have been cleaned off. Which is what lead me to believe it was hardware related and not software realated.
Can you let us know your system spec. If it's an old mobo then maybe XP isn't the way."
--------------------------
It didnt pop up these errors until numerous forced reboots later, so Im of the mind that it only did that cause the improper reboots screwed something up with the windows.
I use an Elite Groups K7S5A motherboard and the most recent bios version from their website.
It didnt do this with just XP, I had windows 2000 on it originally when these proplems started.
I formatting then reinstalled using my new XP disk after the errors starting thinking it was something that got messed up with windows 2000, but then it started doing it again with windows XP.
__________________________
"If you are unable to swap parts out, the best you can do is test the memory and replace drivers. Run the diagnostic from www.memtest86.com, but be aware that passing the diagnostic (which can take hours) doesn't mean the memory is good; you would need known good memory to confirm that. For the drivers, you can try a repair install: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_install.htm "
--------------------------
Thanks for the link to the memory tester, ill try that once I get a chance. As for the drivers it did this even after i formatted 2000 off it and tryed installing a new copy of XP. So I tend to think its not a driver problem since it happened twice with 2 clean installs.
Plus the computer had been running fine for quite awhile, Ive had it for 2-3 years with no real problems. Only thing i changed was the harddrive recently, which ran fine for a good 2-3 weeks before this happend.
__________________________
when you get the BSOD(blue screen of death), what is the error message... this might finger the problem right away !
I dont know what the error number is anymore, I dont get the blue screen anymore cause now I have formatted my harddrive but cant reinstall cause both my xp and 2000 disks are bringing up errors when copying over the setupfiles to start the install. Not the actual windows files, but when its loading the setup program, when its loading drivers and such.
__________________________
"Dry connections in ram sockets and pci slots can cause this too. Clean and reset all pci cards and ram. Power supply is next likely culpret."
My case is actually quite clean, I have a lian li case with a filter in the front intake that collects the dust and such. Im actually quite impressed with the case, even after 2-3 years the inside looks brand new.
As for the powersupply id rather not replace it unless I know for sure that is the problem. Im a poor college student, you know how that goes. ;)
"Just because the hard disk is new don't discount it."
I didnt discount it cause it was new, I discounted it because it was installed and everything was running fine for a good 2-3 weeks before this started.
__________________________
"Do you know what caused your first disk to fail?"
I have no idea what went wrong. I came home from class and my computer was sitting at the boot up screen saying disk read error. Apparently it had messed up and forced itself to reboot while i was gone and got stuck at the boot up since it couldnt read the disk anymore. Right now that harddrive is sitting off in a pile of junk. ;)
"Quite how clever it is in preventing you reinstalling the OS I couldn't say."
Aye, and ive formatted it twice since it first happend, so anything on there should have been cleaned off. Which is what lead me to believe it was hardware related and not software realated.
Even if your case is clean enough to eat out of the connections can still fail after time. Pull out all cards and ram and clean the contacts with a white eraser. If you have any electronic component cleaner, spray that in the sockets on the board. Also remove any uneeded cards like modems and sound before trying the install. You can also try turning of cache in bios.
Hi i had a similar problem... especialy during windows setup when some system files were missing.
it took me about 2-3 weeks to find out that my RAM was somehow not working properly.
alsow i was getting the blue screen with the STOP error very often during all the problem.
Try to get RAM from friends to try it.
it took me about 2-3 weeks to find out that my RAM was somehow not working properly.
alsow i was getting the blue screen with the STOP error very often during all the problem.
Try to get RAM from friends to try it.
I have also seen random reboots and/or failure to start with Lucent Winmodems going bad. If you have a modem in your computer try removing it to see if this will correct it.
ASKER
I ran that memtest86 for a few hours and it listed a lot under the Failing Address list, so I guess that means its having problems with my ram? Im gunna try taking out one dimm at a time and seeing if one works and one dont next.
After i stopped the test i went into the setup to check the hardware monitor after it had a load for awhile and this is what it listed. It seems fine with me, but just thought I better include it.
Vcore 1.728 V
Vcc2.5v 2.480
Vcc3.3v 3.264V
Vcc5v 5.026V
+12V 12.096V
SB3V 3.408
-12V -11.885V
SB5V 5.026V
Vbat 3.408V
System Fan Speed 3835 RPM
CPU Fan Speed 4017 RPM
System Temperature 33C/91F
CPU Temperature 47C/116F
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"Even if your case is clean enough to eat out of the connections can still fail after time. Pull out all cards and ram and clean the contacts with a white eraser"
Whats a white eraser? something from an electronics store?
I do have a compressed air can that i clean it out with now and then, i was gunna do that too while i was at it.
__________________________
btw, the only extra components i have pluged in is my sound card and video card
other than cdrom/harddrive/floppy
After i stopped the test i went into the setup to check the hardware monitor after it had a load for awhile and this is what it listed. It seems fine with me, but just thought I better include it.
Vcore 1.728 V
Vcc2.5v 2.480
Vcc3.3v 3.264V
Vcc5v 5.026V
+12V 12.096V
SB3V 3.408
-12V -11.885V
SB5V 5.026V
Vbat 3.408V
System Fan Speed 3835 RPM
CPU Fan Speed 4017 RPM
System Temperature 33C/91F
CPU Temperature 47C/116F
--------------------------
"Even if your case is clean enough to eat out of the connections can still fail after time. Pull out all cards and ram and clean the contacts with a white eraser"
Whats a white eraser? something from an electronics store?
I do have a compressed air can that i clean it out with now and then, i was gunna do that too while i was at it.
__________________________
btw, the only extra components i have pluged in is my sound card and video card
other than cdrom/harddrive/floppy
ASKER
I took out the second dimm, ran the test, everything went fine with no errors.
Put the second dim where the first one was, prog froze at test #2, then when i restarted the comp wouldnt even bring up the bios or anything anymore.
Put the first one back in and left the second one out agian and everything ran fine.
So it looks like one of my dimms went bad.
Im going to order 2 new dimms to replace them with since my friend said an older MB like mine has problems when using 2 different dimms of different size or manufacturer.
Could anyone confirm that the hardware monitor listings are acceptable values for me?
Put the second dim where the first one was, prog froze at test #2, then when i restarted the comp wouldnt even bring up the bios or anything anymore.
Put the first one back in and left the second one out agian and everything ran fine.
So it looks like one of my dimms went bad.
Im going to order 2 new dimms to replace them with since my friend said an older MB like mine has problems when using 2 different dimms of different size or manufacturer.
Could anyone confirm that the hardware monitor listings are acceptable values for me?
SOLUTION
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Can you let us know your system spec. If it's an old mobo then maybe XP isn't the way.
btw there is a way to force XP into dropping ACPI, something called HAL.... or the like, but that's the sum total of my knowledge, just that it exists.