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Windows 2000 Bootup 1

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mhay

Technical User
Apr 20, 2004
5
US
Have a Dell pc with Windows 2000 that freezes at the Dell splash screen on bootup. Only happens in the mornings...will boot up fine the rest of the day. Hard drive passes diagnostic tests and no conflicts have been found. BIOS was upgraded. Any ideas?
 
is it cold/hot in the room that you keep your computer? tempature could be a possiblity, I would check you event logs as well just to see if anything shows up.
 
temperature increase causes expansion - perhaps a connection is not being properly made until said expansion has happened? I'd check all components and connections - but if it is this, may not be easily visible.
 
the temp stays the same in the building at all times....checked event logs and nothing shows up. also checked fan on cpu...none of those things seem to be a problem.
 
mhay - but computers get warmer after they have been on a while - so it could be computer's own heat that's causing the expansion of a component (or a component which is slightly damaged like a capacitor to kick in). If you read these forums you'll find a number of posts where change in machine temperature have caused/fixed a problem that's really due to a component being less than 100% or a connection not being reliable. But such are often difficult to actually find - microscopic inspection of the motherboard and connected devices being the order of the day!

You say in the mornings - do you really mean when first switched on for the day?
 
Yes, it only happens when it's first turned on in the morning, usually around 7am. We've tried reconnecting everything on the motherboard and are also trying switching out some parts. Thanks for the replies....have considered the heat thing but not sure which components might be causing the problem....it's taking a while to figure out b/c we don't know if anything worked until the next morning when it's booted up.
 
Try this:

1) If possible, replace that PC with another pc of similar components and see if the issue happens again, if so...
What is happening at 7am in your area, is the electrical closet that powers that area shared with something else that takes a lot of juice (Ex. A/C, Refrigerators, Heaters,Coffee Machines, etc..).
If you are unable to replce the PC, try to plug the machine into another outlet, preferably an outlet that does not use the same power closet or same wires.
2) If the replaced PC has no issues, try to plug the problem PC into another outlet, if it still has issues, try to replcace the power supply ot cables.

 
I have this identical problem on my home PC, also a DELL. First boot of the day always hangs at the splash screen regardless of whether its morning or evening, also regardless of temperature. Power off and reboot proceeds normally with nothing logged for the earlier failed boot. Subsequent reboots on the same day are OK.
This is not the ened of the world but I would like to know what's causing it !
 
Glad to know somebody else is having the same problem. We ended up switching out several parts but nothing seemed to work so we switched out motherboard with another machine that was identical. Did this on Thursday and so far it's been working...but not sure if it will continue to work. Same problems as groominator, reboot usually works but there is nothing logged for the earlier boot. We checked the temps and the power in the room and all of that is OK.
 
Had the same type problem on one of my users machines. It would freeze at the splash screen on the first boot of the day but would start/restart fine after that. I could not find any problem that might cause this, but after upgrading the directx version to the latest (8 at the time) the freezing stopped!
I too thought it must be a temp related problem with the hardware, but it's been working fine ever since...

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ
 
All,

I rarely even quibble with Wolluf, but my own experience:

Note the similarity of the issue: it stops at first boot, works fine thereafter.

Thoughts:

It is a heat related issue as Wolluf described, but not an over-heating issue. Pull out every device you have in a PCI and/or AGP slot and clean the contacts. At a good computer or electronics store you can find coatings for your gold contacts to reduce corrosion. But pull all of the adapters out, including RAM, use a clean #2 soft pencil eraser, and rub them gently. Clean, and reinsert.

Look very hard at your video board, or any other device with ROM code that needs to be incorporated at startup. Look very closely that you have set in BIOS, if possible, the appropriate settings for BUS MASTERING devices. Look in the BIOS to see that shadowing of the adapter ROMs was not done inappropriately.

My experience has been that the BIOS settings for that PCI slot were not set properly to allow the DRAM of the device to begin a refresh cycle in sych with the rest of the computer.

Look very hard at the Video adapter manufacturer's web site. Do not use the Windows Update proferred device drivers. Go to the OEM chipset driver manufacturer's Web sites for Video driver Updates.

Finally, it might be an issue of bad capacitors on either the motherboard or the power supply. If it works after a reboot/reset, I would leave sleeping dogs lie. Leave it alone as an issue, there are far worse things, and "solving" a sleepy or poor capacitor issue is just simply not worth your time.

Bill Castner
 
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