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Win7 Boot Issues 32-bit Ultimate

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donb01

IS-IT--Management
Feb 20, 2006
2,241
US
My computer never gets shut off, has current antivirus and firewall software, and I don't click on random garbage on facebook.

Several weeks ago I came downstairs to see a generic VGA screen that said something along the lines of "Windows was unable to start, do you want to run Starup Repair (recommended) <etc>" First time I ever saw that screen, so I said No, rebooted and it came right up. I immediately scanned it with 50,000 tools to make sure nothing was growing, ran sfc on it, etc - all showed good.

Middle of last week there was some kind of power interruption at the house. 90% of what counts is on batteries, so the only way I really knew it happened was that a few appliance clocks were defaulted. Of course the battery took a dump for this PC's UPS and I haven't replaced it yet, but it is on a good, trustworthy surge strip. Came home from work to the same message on the screen. So this time I figured if it was due to a power outage I would run it. I ran it and it went through it's long, boring process and told me nothing was wrong, but "If you added a new device recently you should remove it". The system booted up good.

Went upstairs for dinner and when I came down there it was again. Again the process said nothing was wrong. This time it wouldn't boot. It would get to "Starting Windows" and the 4 magic dots rolled out. Right after that, just when it looked like it was going to kick in the hi-res video, etc *click* off goes the power - then a couple seconds later it started booting again - just about the same spot, *click* off goes the power.

Well about this time I <expletives deleted> commented on the quality of the build and assumed it was the power supply - maybe it took a hit from whatever that power interruption was. At one point it was so bad that it wouldn't even get out of the BIOS splash screen before the power went off.

I've been doing this a long time, so I started troubleshooting - first thing shed some load (NZXT PP800 800W PS). I disconnected the 4 extra case fans, spare HD, and all the USB stuff exc the keyboard and mouse. Still wouldn't boot. Tried Safe mode with network and it cut out right about the time I figured it was initializing the LAN ports, so I tried Safe mode only and that booted up. Now at this time I was pretty convinced it was the power supply, but it's a weird size so I didn't go shopping yet.

So now I do know that I took a new video driver off Windows Update a couple weeks ago so I went on my spare (old) computer and downloaded the exact manufacturer driver. I installed that and told it to do a clean install (wipe previous). Then I went into device manager and deleted both network cards, and prior to all that, just to cover all the bases, I rolled it back a good month with System Restore. After doing all that I then restarted it and tried again. It no longer made the power unceremoniously dump, but it got to the "Starting Windows" screen with the 4-color logo and just sat there. There was HD activity so I left it go and went to dinner. 3 hours later I came back and it was still sitting just like that.

So now I hit the reset button and was able to boot into Safe mode with network. I ran sfc again and it came up clean. I ran the malware checker again and it came up clean. I can run most of my programs, get online, get my mail, etc - but a lot of stuff won't run in safe mode.

It absolutely will not boot past the startup screen on a normal boot. Nothing I have run indicates any OS or HD problems. I have reconnected the second HD but have not put the case fans back because I left the cover off. I have increased the screen res to 1280x1024 but it is still running the generic VGA driver and not the NVidia 9800 one for the card. It will run for hours and hours like that without shutting off.

So that throws me into questions about if it's really the power supply. I don't want to go out and buy a $150 power supply (and go through the wiring mess to change it) if that isn't the problem. Has anyone ever heard of a power supply that can deliver enough to keep the system mostly running but cuts out on overload when it gets stressed? I don't think it's thermal - I have a lot of ventilation in that case. Does anyone have any ideas why it won't boot past that point, of if there is some kind of bootlog file that I can access that wouldn't get overwritten when I reboot it in safe mode? Would I suspect a problem with the MBR even though it boots up in safe mode just fine?

I'm sure there are folks out there that have delved deep into the guys of Win7 that might be able to share some helpful information. I can easily back up all my data and stuff, but I really don't want to wipe the whole thing and re-install all 10 million apps when it seems to be running fine except for not booting outside of safe mode.

Thanks!
 
First things first, check the capacitors around the Processor on about the top 1/4 of the motherboard. If bloated the board is shot.
Only booting into Safe Mode is not considered "fine". If you say you've tested the Hard drive, RAM, and Processor and all came back fine and you dont want to spend money to try and figure out the issue, try moving the data on the USB HDD to a temp backup area, install it in place of the current HDD and do a new OS install. This will test many things in its process:
1) Is it overheating?
2) Is it a bad original HDD?
3) Is it RAM related?
4) Is it Power Supply related?

If it loads fine on the "new" HDD, I would venture a bad original HDD or if you had Auto Updates on and it was in the middle of an update and the power crashed, would explain why you are having those issues.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...
 
In addition why not have it power off and stay powered off in the event of a power failure and also turn off reboot after a system crash?
 
I'll have to check the board - this is a tower case, so I am assuming the "top" of the board is that which is above the processor rather than that which is toward the peripheral connectors at the "back" of the board.

I doubt it's overheating. The space temp averages about 67, and that case has 6 fans alone - 2 in back blowing out and 4 on the side blowing in, in addition to 2 fans blowing into the PS and the processor fan is this huge thing that looks like a finned clamshell with copper tubes and a 3" fan blowing through it. You can't really feel any heat in that case at all.

Not sure about the RAM - thought about that, but would that case it to unceremoniously dump the power without putting up a blue screen or some other memory fault error on the screen? The system checker says the memory and HDD are good, and I have ran several virus scans now without errors.

I have 2 identical hard drives, with that being my original backup methodology when I bought the system. I have a full backup and a set of incrementals on that HD that I can probably move off to the eSATA drive and then swap drives, do a new install and restore the data onto the second drive. My only concern there is if a backup happened with corrupted data on the drive it may not be reliable.

I was almost 100% going down the power supply failure or other hardware route when the system couldn't even make it through the POST (BIOS Splash) screen without shutting down - I figured the system was dumping power before Windows even got started loading so I figured that precluded the OS from being the culprit and it could be a failed video card or Power Supply. If it's the network ports then the board would need to be replaced because they are integrated (It's a Gigbyte (sp?) mainboard). The thing that raises the question in my mind about the power supply is that it will stay running in the Safe mode with network option and doesn't seem to be dumping power like it was.

On the other hand, it has 4GB of RAM in it and maybe Safe Mode only uses 1GB - it could possibly be a memory issue as well. I think I have a memory test utility laying around someplace.

I don't know about the HDD - I don't see a single indication anywhere of drive errors. Smart mode is disabled in the BIOS - I wonder if I should enable that - not sure if it works for SATA HDDs...
 
Yes, I did see the options in the F8 menu to disable restart after system crash, and I think the setting for the PS is in the bios and it is set to "last state". I could change that too, but it's all after the fact and good suggestions for down the road :eek:)
 
I would try a different video card, In safe mode, the generic vga driver does nothing with any of the directx or special parts in the video card, and it runs just enough to get you video, and low res. graphics. The power needed to run the video card had higher details, would load the power supply a lot more, also Have you checked the fan on the video card, not that it spins, but the fins, and yes I know, there is a shroud over it, remove the screws, and pull it off, and check the fan and air flow. Or try that card in a different system, and load the latest drivers.
 
Yes, I've seen PSU's that would function in SafeMode but would crash the system every time it booted into Windows Normal mode...

btw. Windows 7 does have it's own Memory Test Utiility right there under the F8 menu...

my bet is on the PSU or the GFX.card... if you have another video card laying around, test with it... and see if you can borrow a known good working PSU to test to see if it is the PSU...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"
 
I think I do have another PCIE video card laying around someplace I can put in there and try and see where that goes. If I was going to spend the money I would much prefer to buy a new video card 'cuz the prices are so low now for what you get. The only hardware change I really made lately was finally getting my dual-monitor setup running about a month ago - and that could have been just long ago enough to stress it and cause a failure.... I bought that big honking gaming power supply thinking I would probably never really stress it, so I'll be disappointed if that's what the problem is.

 
Putting in too large of a power supply is really not that good of an idea either, it doesn't allow the power supply to reach it's full potential as far as efficiency is concerned. Also this is taken from the wiki about computer power supplies:

There is a popular misconception that a greater power capacity (watt output capacity) is always better. Since supplies are self-certified, a manufacturer's claims may be double or more what is actually provided.[6][7] Although a too-large power supply will have an extra margin of safety as far as not over-loading, a larger unit is often less efficient at lower loads (under 20% of its total capability) and therefore will waste more electricity than a more appropriately sized unit.

Additionally, computer power supplies generally do not function properly if they are too lightly loaded. (less than about 15% of the total load.) Under no-load conditions they may shut down or malfunction.For this reason the no-load protection was introduced in some power supplies.
 
Well I'm down to a 50-50 coin toss right now. I made a shocking discovery earlier and now have a pretty good idea what's going on - I just don't have it singled down to one cause.

I got home and booted the computer up the normal way. As usual it "locked up" with only "Starting Windows" on the display. So this light bulb popped on - you know how that goes... I rolled over to the spare computer and fired up remote desktop and hit the IP of the computer in question - *bing!* there is the whole world just the way I left it, even though there is just a generic display on the main monitor.

So ordinarily I would have hit the video card without a thought, but as suggested above I pulled it out and disassembles it, and as predicted it had its share of dust crud buildup. I blew all that off and put it all back together and tossed it back in the PC. While I was at it I installed the external SATA connectors I have been procrastinating for a year because I was too lazy to take the whole thing apart and open up the case.

The one thing I noticed now that has cast the doubt in my mind is that this is a PCI Express 2.0 video card, and as such has a special 6-pin power connector from the power supply. So now I understand exactly what is going on. That video card is coming up and using BUS power to display the VGA startup crap, and as soon as that is done it shifts gears into Hi-Power mode and starts sucking off the power supply instead - that's why no video shows up after that.

So now the $5 Million question is: Do I have a bad video card that goes to ground or has some power issue that is causing the power supply to protect itself and shut down, OR do I have a bad power supply that cannot supply the power needs of the video card and the power supply is shutting itself down to protect itself. The problem happens whether I have just a single monitor hooked up, or both of them.

So I guess tomorrow my first try will be to run to Best Buy and pick up some video card comparable to what I have now. If that doesn't work the only other possibility is the power supply...
 
And now that it crashed during the night in safe mode after running fine all day yesterday I'm leaning back towards the power supply again... I really wish I could make up my mind and not have to buy both!
 
is the power supply or video card in the other pc a possibility to swap out to the ailing one? Just as a test.
 
No, I already thought of what and checked. The other PC is considerably older and has an AGP card in it. This same thing applies to the power supply because the new is PCI-E and requires the special power supply, etc....

I wish it was that simple!!
 
Quick follow-up. I ended up being impatient and replacing both the power supply and the video card. I bought both of them and figured I'd take back what I didn't need, and then when I was doing it I replaced the power supply first and then thought if that wasn't the problem I certainly wasn't going to take it back out, blah, blah...

So it's back up and working now. The only thing is that it would not boot up past the startup screen right away, and I logged in through remote desktop to install the new drivers. After the new drivers were installed and I rebooted it started right up.

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions.
 
What new drivers (I'm assuming you only replaced the power supply for now from what you wrote)
 
He replaced both the power supply and video card, loaded the new video drivers, and it's back up and working.
 
The new video card I bought also had an Nvidia processor on it, but it was a different type and had a different driver version. I assumed it didn't initially boot properly because the older drivers were confusing things after I dropped in the new card, and went right into remote desktop to do the install. I ran the "clean install" function on the new driver disk and everything went great.
 
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