Computer Fails To Fully Boot

[jjryan]

This started about two to three months ago and I've been debugging it ever since with no success.

From a cold start in the morning I'll press the power button and the machine will start and you'll hear the fans and drives start up and then about 1 second later it shuts off. I have to repeat this process about 10-15 times before it will finally stay on and I hear the beep from the motherboard and windows starts. Other times it will also startup and stay running but I'll never get the beep or a display on the monitor.

I've removed the DVD-Rom, Done Memory Stick Tests, removed the firewire card and just tried to boot with AGP video card, motherboard, and drives and still no success. If I try and remove the AGP video card for some reason even after the machine seems to be warmed up and boots fine I can't get it to beep with the video card unplugged while trying to use the onboard video. It will just run with no beep like in the above situation. I keep hearing it's probably the motherboard but want to make sure before I invest money in fixing this so I can determine if I'm just better off buying another machine or not.

Once the machine is running it's fine. No crashes at all. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!


SiSoftware Sandra


Processor
Model : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
Speed : 2.81GHz
Performance Rating : PR3087 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 1 Unit(s)
Threads per Core : 1 Unit(s)
Internal Data Cache : 8kB Synchronous, Write-Thru, 4-way set, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 512kB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 8-way set, 64 byte line size, 2 lines per sector

Mainboard
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI IMB USB i2c/SMBus
MP Support : 1 Processor(s)
MP APIC : Yes
System BIOS : Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG
Mainboard : MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-7060
Total Memory : 1GB DDR-SDRAM

Chipset 1
Model : Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) SiS661FX CPU to PCI Bridge
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 134MHz (536MHz data rate)
Total Memory : 1GB DDR-SDRAM

Video System
Monitor/Panel : SyncMaster 931B/931BF/931BA/930BA(Digital)
Adapter : NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT

Physical Storage Devices
Hard Disk : HDS722540VLAT20 (37GB)
Hard Disk : WDC WD1600JB-00REA0 (149GB)

Logical Storage Devices
Main (C : 34GB (14GB, 41% Free Space) (NTFS)
Secondary (D : 149GB (147GB, 99% Free Space) (NTFS)

Peripherals
Serial/Parallel Port(s) : 2 COM / 1 LPT
USB Controller/Hub : SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : SiS PCI to USB Enhanced Host Controller
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
USB Controller/Hub : USB Root Hub
Keyboard : Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse : PS/2 Compatible Mouse

MultiMedia Device(s)
Device : Realtek AC'97 Audio

Printers and Faxes
Model : PDFCreator
Model : Microsoft Office Document Image Writer

Power Management
AC Line Status : On-Line

Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP/2002 Home (Win32 x86) 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 2)

Network Services
Adapter : SiS 900-Based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter

Performance Tips
Warning 100 : Large memory sizes should be made of Registered/Buffered memory.
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.

 

[jjryan]

Anyone?

 

[Heckler 5th]

what are specs of your power supply?

invest in a power supply tester to rule out any problems with that. if not the psu, prolly is your motherboard.

 

[jjryan]

Allied AL-C300 ATX

A quick google search shows specs on tiger directs website: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...m-details.asp?EdpNo=2769352&CatId=1077

 

[deathwalker]

Not to be too harsh..but Allied makes junk for Power Supplies...also, a Power Supply tester may not reveal the problem even if it is the power supply. Usually a Power supply tester is only good at telling you is the power supply is dead. It won't detect intermentent problems or weak/marginal voltage rails. Take a harder look at the possibility of it being the power supply before passing judgement on your motherboard.

 

[loucrotix]

hi,
this sounds more like a problem with a cpu or motherboard.
anything in the eventlog/system?

 

[oynaz]

Try reseating everything, including the CPU.

Apart from that, my guess is a faulty PSU, motherboard or RAM, with the PSU being the most likely culprit, and the RAM the least.

 

[jjryan]

I'm not sure how to reseat the CPU. Does it just remove off the motherboard and snap back in place?

As far as the event log where is this found? I believe I've seen this before and nothing jumped out at me though when someone else was looking at it.

To the person who mentioned Allied PSU's being crap. I didn't pick it out and know nothing about them so wasn't aware of this. About a year and a half ago I upgraded my motherboard and PSU to do more gaming and a local computer place picked both the board and PSU unit for me and I trusted the guys judgement. Since then I have a really bad taste in my mouth with them. Horrible customer service and I'm now using a different place who is much more friendly and doesn't charge for every little thing.

What should be my next step in debugging this?

 

[bjp999]

At the time you started to have problems, had you recently upgraded or done any maintenance on the computer (not software)?

If not, it sounds like a heat related thing. Once you turn it on a few times, some marginal component gets warm and expands a bit and it starts working. Three - four months ago may have been around the time it started to get colder in your house?

If you have a spare PSU you should try changing that. (Many stores have a good return policy so you could buy one to see if it clears up your problem, and if not, return it). You might also try pulling memory and leaving only one stick. These are pretty easy things to do and you might get lucky. My guess, though, is that it is the MB. CPUs have very low failure rates. I would not pull your CPU until you've ruled everything else out. Google and you'll find instructions. Installing can be tricky, esp. the first few times you do it.

There are a couple of local mom and pop style computer stores in my area that I like. They are able to diagnose these types of problems and repair PCs quickly. I recently had a MB go bad in my daughter's PC and they tested everything and diagnosed the problem (bad MB), installed CPU and everything on a new MB, and I was on my way in less than an hour for the (slightly expensive) price of a new MB. It was a bargain for me. (Her computer was very similar to yours - 2.8GHz Pentium 4 - Northwood). YMMV

Good luck!

 

[jjryan]

I have two spare I believe 150watt power supplies around from older computers. Would these work for testing it? The current one in there is a 300watt.

 

[Heckler 5th]

those 150W PSU's aren't enough to boot that board. unless you have another old, working computer using a PSU of simlar size, throw em out cuz they're useless for any computer newer than at least 4 years old.

really sounds like your PSU is your culprit. if it was the motherboard or cpu or memory your PC wouldn't boot at all. but you said above that you can get into windows after hitting the power button "10-15 times".

i suggest running to compusa or somewhere and picking up an antec 400W or higher psu to test. then return it if it doesn't fix your problem. eliminating a bad PSU should be your first step anyway since a dying one can kill your motherboard all by itself.

 

[jjryan]

Interesting. PSU is only about 2 years old. How much do 400watt power supplies run?

 

[amdskip]

I would actually check into a power supply on the Forsale/Trade forums.

Antec 480w

Good deal here

But yes, it definately is your power supply (99% sure)

 

[jjryan]

Thanks. I just posted a message on that thread with the one being sold. Did a quick search and it seems that PSU runs about $110. $38 shipped sounds like a great deal. Why do you sound so sure it's the power supply by the way? Just curious! Thanks.

 

[bjp999]

Originally posted by: jjryan
Thanks. I just posted a message on that thread with the one being sold. Did a quick search and it seems that PSU runs about $110. $38 shipped sounds like a great deal. Why do you sound so sure it's the power supply by the way? Just curious! Thanks.

Power supplies are one of the most frequent (in my experience) components to fail in a computer. Having an extra one is not a bad thing. But usually when a power supply goes it goes and won't turn on at all. It can start to act flakey though.

The power supply has extra work to do as the computer is turned on. Getting hard drives spinning up takes considerably more power than keeping them spinning.

If after you get the computer going for a few minutes, you shut it down (all the way to power off), and then turn it back on, will the problem recur or will it boot right up? If it will boot right up, you might try a test to get the power supply out of the computer and warmed up, and then hook it back up to the computer and see if the problem recurs.

Good luck.

 

[jjryan]

Originally posted by: bjp999
If after you get the computer going for a few minutes, you shut it down (all the way to power off), and then turn it back on, will the problem recur or will it boot right up? If it will boot right up, you might try a test to get the power supply out of the computer and warmed up, and then hook it back up to the computer and see if the problem recurs.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. I shut it down after it took about 5-7 minutes to finally get it to start. It started with no problem on that attempt right after shutting it down.

Thoughts after reading these results would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[jjryan]

Interesting. Right after I posted the message above the computer restarted by itself again almost like a power surge happened. This was happening a month or two ago but went away once I removed a stick of memory I thought might be conflicting with the other stick.

 

[Heckler 5th]

replace that PSU before it croaks and takes out the motherboard, memory, whatever with it.

 

[jjryan]

I tried something else today. Removed the plugs for the Slave Drive I have in the machine so it would just start with that master drive, video card, and motherboard. For some reason it goes REALLY slow through the startup procedure with this master drive. Then after it says "Verifying DMI pool data ... update success" it says

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

Does this mean the C drive is possibly the problem?


------

Another Update:

Plugged the drive back in and everything started fine. Except in the middle of working on something in Adobe Audition the computer just quickly shut off and restarted with no blue screen or warning again.

 

[jjryan]

I'm proud to say the problem is fixed! It was a bad power supply. Thanks for everyone's help in trying to debug the issue. I appreciate it.