Slight Problems with XP Home

[Crispy]

I have recently done a clean install of XP on my machine. Before that I was using ME, and have gone through the long process of getting everything reloaded.

Everything seemed to be working fine for the first week or so, but recently things seem to be a little different, and I wondered if you guys might have any ideas.

The mobo has always been a little strange, in that it comes on when you power up for a few seconds, and then turns off again. Pressing the power button then starts the machine OK. I queried this with the supplier initially, but was assured it was built into the design.

That's no great problem and I was quite surprised when XP powered it up immediately the power was connected, first time. That now seems to have changed and the machine powers up and runs for about ten seconds, then stops and requires me to press the power button. There is also, what sounds like a clicking from the system speaker when starting, but that stops again by the time XP has booted.

The boot process seems very slow compared to my wife's machine, also running XP Home, and includes some long periods of having a totally blank screen. There have always been some blank periods of short duration during the start-up, but they seem to have more than doubled recently.

I experienced a strange thing today, which really prompted this post. The machine had been running for a couple of hours and I was called away. When I returned, the machine appeared to be running as normal, but the screen was blank. I tried moving the mouse and several other keys, but nothing seemed to do any good. I have all the power saving options set to never so I'm a bit mystified. My wife tells me my screensaver had been working a few minutes earlier when she passed by. Anyway, I rebooted and it's been running as normal ever since.

If anything rings a bell with anyone, I'd love to hear it.
Regards
Chris

[blue60007]

Is this a self built computer? Or an off the shelf one (like Dell, HP, etc)?

If you could list your system specs, especially the power supply (include brand).

I had a Dell that had a power supply starting to go bad and it wouldn't start up right some times.

[GaryRouth]

Hi Crispy -

This is what puzzles me:
"The mobo has always been a little strange, in that it comes on when you power up for a few seconds, and then turns off again. Pressing the power button then starts the machine OK. I queried this with the supplier initially, but was assured it was built into the design."

I don't know of anything legitimate that is designed to do this. Along with blue60007, I'm curious who the "supplier" is = and if an off-brand "white box", what motherboard & power supply.

It's possible that your system's Power Management settings are awry: but ten seconds is too fast for most any power management that I can think of. You might want to check that anyway: look in on the settings in your motherboard's Bios Setup screens. Might as well check all the settings in there, not just Power Management (you can even check your system temps in there, too). If Spread Spectrum is turned on, try things with that turned off.

If you see an item that asks what to do when the power button is pressed, make sure it says to turn on/off - and not to sleep or hibernate. It rather sounds like the system is going into sleep mode right away - which of course it shouldn't.

A problematic power supply can cause all sorts of freezes, if you've another supply around, of decent wattage and vendor: it's worth trying.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[Crispy]

Thank you both for your replies, I'll give you what info I can.

The machine was put together to my requirements by a popular UK company, so no brand name you would know.
Mobo: MSI K7T Turbo2 (MS-6330 ATX)
CPU: AMD Athlon 1200Mhz
Power Supply: Q-TEC ADT-350

CMOS settings where considered appropriate:
Power management all Disabled
Soft-Off By PWRBTN set to Instant Off
PC-Health Status: Shutdown set to 70c / Current CPU 43c
I have the temps monitored by SpeedFan and displayed in the tray, after a long session of 10-12 hours, it may reach 50c. I have fans front and rear in addition to CPU fan.

The Spread Spectrum is set to ON currently and I may experiment next time I boot.

Anything I've missed can easily be supplied. Thanks for your help.
Chris

[glc]

That model motherboard was one of those that was afflicted by the bad capacitors. Inspect the standup capacitors on the board for bulging and electrolyte leakage. A good clue of problems here is low voltage on the +12v rail, you can read this out in the bios or with motherboard monitoring software. The last one of these that had bad caps I worked on, the +12v was running around 11.5, and did not change with a different power supply. (As a note, the new motherboard ran the +12v at 12.1 with the same power supply). Next step is run diagnostics on the memory and the hard drive.

Free ram diags: www.memtest.org

Hard drive diags can be downloaded from the hard drive manufacturer.

[GaryRouth]

[. . . glc - If it turns out to be the bad capacitor problem, I remember that Abit offered replacement boards at no extra cost: does MSI have a similiar policy?

. . . Crispy - the bad capacitor problem we mention was a manufacturing mistake from a few years ago, where an incorrect formula was used (it's a pretty good story: corporate espionage involved = with the wrong formula stolen [lacking a crucial ingredient = which if I remember right was an enzyme]). The problem has been straightened out since then. ]

. . . Gary

[glc]

MSI does not that I'm aware of. That's a pretty old board anyway, long off warranty.

[Crispy]

Thanks both for your help, Im beginning to get a little worried now, though more of that later.

I can't see any obvious signs on the board, least nothing that a good air clean wouldn't put right. The system voltages are showing as:
3.3v is at 3.36v
5v is at 5.2v
12v is at 11.88v

After the move up to XP, and the length of time getting things back how I wanted them, I decided to buy an external drive and upgrade to Ghost 9, believing that it would protect against all possible events. I'll pause there for the laughter to die down. Your talk of mobo problems, including the age of the thing, starts me worrying all over again. I believe I'm correct in saying that a new mobo at any later date, would require yet another clean install, rather than my simply restoring a Ghost copy.

No further plans I guess, until I get the truth from you more knowledgeable, and very helpful guys.

Chris

[J1978]

Originally Posted by Crispy I believe I'm correct in saying that a new mobo at any later date, would require yet another clean install, rather than my simply restoring a Ghost copy. No further plans I guess, until I get the truth from you more knowledgeable, and very helpful guys. Chris

Hi if i am not mistaken when you get a new mobo you just need to do a repair install of windows ( not a fresh install ) you dont lose your programs or data.

[Crispy]

That's good to hear, so I hope you're not mistaken. I was basing the reply on my experiences with Win'95 and ME, that as far as I know, didn't have a repair facility. The idea of just restoring a backup in the event of a disk crash or other hardware problem is vey reassuring.

All the best,
Chris

[GaryRouth]

J1978 is right about a repair install. Here's a thread which reports success doing just that: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?&threadid=100373

Now it's just a matter of running all the diagnostics & seeing what's up!
. . . Gary

[Crispy]

Thanks for that link Gary, but I think I may have left it too late to take my backup.

The machine started today, after a long session of clicking. It went on longer than usual before powering down, but then started OK when I clicked the power button.

I installed Norton Ghost, and registered it online and then I got to the bit where a Restart is required. It powered down and I tried to boot from the Ghost disk as recommended but.... It started booting, got to the point where the screen goes blank for about 20-30 seconds then the next thing I saw was the message from my monitor telling me no signal was being received and the whole boot process went on again from scratch. The same thing happened several times before I decided to remove the CD and start normally. Nothing started, just that clicking noise, all the fans and the power light on the hard drive. Nothing from the CD drive, no lights no nothing.

I removed the front fan cover, which also covers the system speaker, just to be sure where the clicking was coming from, and it is definitely from the speaker. The speed doesn't seem to vary, but stays at a constant rate of approx. 2 per second and seems to me like electrical interferance.

It's beginning to look to me more like the mobo all the time, but I'd be delighted if anyone has another idea.

Chris (having to squeeze in time on my wife's machine.)