XP SP3 Hang @ Splash Screen

[faint545]

Work asked me to diagnose this particular desktop. It's a Dell Dimension 3000 with Windows XP Pro SP3. They said that upon start up the PC would boot as normal except it would hang up at the splash screen. Now I've researched this issue and it seems to be pretty common. I spent hours (starting from this morning until now) trying to fix this problem.

This desktop does uses integrated video and the driver for it are working/up to date. I still not 100% sure if the video is the problem. Many problems pointing to this are a result of an incorrect video driver or some form of faulty driver. Safe mode works just fine.

I've also noticed that if I wait about 20 minutes at the splash screen, it will eventually boot into windows. At the moment I can't think of any other problems. I'm pretty certain hardware isn't an issue but software definitely is. I've tried disabling AGP440.SYS and that solution didn't work. Although, I haven't tried using a separate video card...

[Panama Red]

Try this. Go into the Device Manager and Uninstall the Video driver. Reboot and see if it gets past the splash screen. If it does, it will probably reinstall the driver. If it does, restart and see if the problem is back. If it doesn't install the driver on its own, use the DM to reinstall it and again, reboot to replicate the problem scenario. Whatever you do, do NOT use video drivers from Windows/Microsoft Update. I've had nothing but trouble with both ATI and nVidia drivers from there. Use the drivers from Dell or go directly to ATI or nVidia's site and download the appropriate driver.

[faint545]

Try this. Go into the Device Manager and Uninstall the Video driver. Reboot and see if it gets past the splash screen. If it does, it will probably reinstall the driver

Tried that, didn't work. I got the latest driver for that machine off of the Dell website and installed it. Still didn't fix the issue. I've pretty much exhausted any ideas that could potentially cause this so now I'm running HDD diagnostics and Memtest.

[Panama Red]

Another item that can cause this is a network issue. Might be caused by the nic or the connection. Try booting without the network cable connected and see if it makes a difference. You might also try disabling the nic with the cable disconnected. If that fixes the issue, try a differerent nic.

[faint545]

Well, I did safeboot with networking and it booted into windows with no problem. The entire time that I have been troubleshooting this desktop, it had been unplugged from the network.

[flanzig1]

While in Safe Mode, could go into MSCONFIG and start disabling things in Startup to see if it will boot normally.

[faint545]

While in Safe Mode, could go into MSCONFIG and start disabling things in Startup to see if it will boot normally.

Did that already. I even set the startup option to be set on Diagnostic mode which disables everything that isn't required. Still had the issue.

[faint545]

At this point i'm really stuck. I've tried the following...

1. Disable all services/startups
2. Disable NIC
3. Disable AGP440.SYS
4. Disable AGPCPQ.SYS
5. System Repair
6. HDD test
7. chkdsk /r

None of these fixed this problem. I did a memory test, one of the two RAM sticks were bad, so I took out the bad one and I'm currently running on the good one. The problem still occurs. Only time when the problem doesn't occur is in safe mode. BIOS is up to date. I'll post the boot log in a little.

[faint545]

Here is the boot log...

Service Pack 3 7 24 2009 14:13:53.500 Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\KDCOM.DLL Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\BOOTVID.dll Loaded driver ACPI.sys Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\WMILIB.SYS Loaded driver pci.sys Loaded driver isapnp.sys Loaded driver pciide.sys Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\PCIIDEX.SYS Loaded driver aliide.sys Loaded driver cmdide.sys Loaded driver toside.sys Loaded driver viaide.sys Loaded driver intelide.sys Loaded driver MountMgr.sys Loaded driver ftdisk.sys Loaded driver dmload.sys Loaded driver dmio.sys Loaded driver PartMgr.sys Loaded driver VolSnap.sys Loaded driver cpqarray.sys Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\SCSIPORT.SYS Loaded driver atapi.sys Loaded driver aha154x.sys Loaded driver sparrow.sys Loaded driver symc810.sys Loaded driver aic78xx.sys Loaded driver dac960nt.sys Loaded driver ql10wnt.sys Loaded driver amsint.sys Loaded driver asc.sys Loaded driver asc3550.sys Loaded driver mraid35x.sys Loaded driver i2omp.sys Loaded driver ini910u.sys Loaded driver ql1240.sys Loaded driver aic78u2.sys Loaded driver symc8xx.sys Loaded driver sym_hi.sys Loaded driver sym_u3.sys Loaded driver ABP480N5.SYS Loaded driver asc3350p.sys Loaded driver cd20xrnt.sys Loaded driver ultra.sys Loaded driver adpu160m.sys Loaded driver dpti2o.sys Loaded driver ql1080.sys Loaded driver ql1280.sys Loaded driver ql12160.sys Loaded driver perc2.sys Loaded driver perc2hib.sys Loaded driver hpn.sys Loaded driver cbidf2k.sys Loaded driver dac2w2k.sys Loaded driver disk.sys Loaded driver \WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\CLASSPNP.SYS Loaded driver fltmgr.sys Loaded driver sr.sys Loaded driver drvmcdb.sys Loaded driver PxHelp20.sys Loaded driver KSecDD.sys Loaded driver Ntfs.sys Loaded driver NDIS.sys Loaded driver sisagp.sys Loaded driver viaagp.sys Loaded driver Mup.sys Loaded driver agp440.sys Loaded driver alim1541.sys Loaded driver amdagp.sys Loaded driver agpCPQ.sys Did not load driver ACPI Uniprocessor PC Did not load driver Audio Codecs Did not load driver Legacy Audio Drivers Did not load driver Media Control Devices Did not load driver Legacy Video Capture Devices Did not load driver Video Codecs Did not load driver WAN Miniport (L2TP) Did not load driver WAN Miniport (IP) Did not load driver WAN Miniport (PPPOE) Did not load driver WAN Miniport (PPTP) Did not load driver Packet Scheduler Miniport Did not load driver Packet Scheduler Miniport Did not load driver Direct Parallel Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device Did not load driver Standard RealPort Device

And it just keeps going. I also have the HiJackThis log... hijackthis.txt

[glc]

Save the data files, then press Ctrl+F11 to reload the factory image.

[faint545]

Yeah, I ended up reinstalling XP.