Intermittent boot hang after "PCI Device listing ..." table

[Jolosolo]

I recently installed a new mobo (nothing else) in my machine -- a shuttle av64, to replace my shuttle av61 that cratered after a bios flash froze. I have had problems getting the system up and running with the new mobo. The current problem is that it is intermittently hanging right after the "PCI device listing ..." table. There is nothing after the last line. Every now and then it will go ahead and boot up even if I change nothing (no hardware or bios settings), or it will work after I move some IRQ #'s around in bios but then start hanging again for no reason, so it is even more of a mystery.

It doesn't even get to the "verifying pool data" line that comes after the pci device listing table. There are 4 devices listed in the table -- IDE Controller, Serial Bus Controller, Multimedia Device, and Display Controller. I have tried removing the multimedia device, disabling USB onboard, and substituting the display controller, with the device listing being accurate after each change, but still freezing before it can start the verifying pool data and all that. I have tried rearranging IRQ's and have set items to "auto-assign" wherever possible in the bios. I have tried swapping which PCI slots are being used, etc. Not sure what I can try next.

Here is my harware config:

Shuttle AV64 Mobo
PIII 550 Mhz
512MB SDRAM
IBM Deskstar 45GB HDD (10 partitions)
HP 8100 4x/24x CD/RW
Gadgetlabs 824 8-Channel Soundcard
Matrox G450 Dual Head AGP Video Card
(tried subbing Matrox with Diamond Stealth PCI video card with no effect)
Dell Trinitron 21' Display
HP Pavillion M70 17' Display

OS - Triple Boot using ind. partitions with Boot Magic Pro 6:
Win98SE
WinXP
Win98SE

Other problems I am having, just in case they are linked and it helps ring a bell for someone (otherwise I will deal with the problems one at a time), are that it doesn't recognize my Pheobe Micro 33.3 modem (ISA) no matter what so far -- whether I change the modem IRQ in BIOS or what, I am also having trouble doing a clean install of windows without getting freezes when it tries installing drivers for monitors (just standard windows drivers) and the "composite power supply". As I said, these problems could be unrelated -- I've never had this kind of trouble with a build. Hope this next question isn't dumb, but this specific PCI device listing screen freeze should be cuse by the fact that I'm using OS installations from the previous system should it? Because it's not even getting that far when it hangs, and sometimes it boots fine into windows. Plus remember that the av64 board I am using now is like the "new and improved" version of the previous board .... windows doesn't even detect more than a couple of hardware changes relating to the board on that first boot up after the change, unless I manually tell it to look for new hardware, in which case it hangs, but hey, I'd like to do a clean install if I can get the problems adressed! One at a time, though, let's focus here...

Any ideas on what I should do next? I'd be glad to provide more info if you need it. Thanks!

Joel

 

[Jolosolo]

OK -- I have a working theory. It seems to work for a while after anything in the case is changed. I have gone through and eliminated every cable and ram stick and card. It will work for several boots sometimes after any change, especialy changes in the ram/floppy connection area, but then go back to hanging. I think there may be a physical short somewhere on the board. For now I am going to make do and move forward, giving this theory time to prove. A physical short would explain two things: why the problem seems intermittent, and why I have gone crazy trying to troubleshoot it on the hardware and bios fronts!

BTW, could the point at which it is stalling tell us anything about what problem area the mobo may be having? See my first post (above).

Thanks

 

[bcastner]

My guess is that it is either the sound board, or the video board, or both.

Do you have an onboard graphics device? If so, and you cannot disable it through BIOS or a jumper, you are going to have problems. Best advice, remove the graphics board, set the BIOS to onboard video, boot from there, go to device manager and DISABLE not uninstall the onboard video. Turn the machine off, reinsert the card, restart, go to bios and set the video to AGP. Reinstall the video drivers for the board.

If you have onboard sound, you need to disable it or try a similar approach as the above with the sound card. Put the sound board in the farthest slot from the AGP slot on your motherboard or it will inevitably try to share the IRQ.

Good luck.

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

My guess is pointing more to a harddrive,floppy drive,or even a cdrom drive issue..if i am not mistaken verify dmi pool data is when the system is ready to access the boot sector which is where yours is hanging at. got into the bios and tell it to boot from just the harddrive or at least harddrive first... and make sure that you have virus warning disable as this can also create problems with loading