MoBo Woe?

[sandpaper600]

I'm having some whackiness going on & I'm wondering if it could be my MoBo. It started out with my system getting slow, sometimes locking up or crashing, and since it has been years since I wiped it, I decided to just reformat my drive and do a clean install. After doing so, I know have some weird problems. Sometimes it won't boot up, stating that there has been a boot disk failure. when I go into the MoBo Bios, the auto detect doesn't show a primary master. I have four drives which have windows on them & I have tried each of them in the unit with no change. Then, for no apparent reason, it'll boot and act ok for a while. While trying to upload SP2 from the MS Update website, it went through the "Preparing to download" phase just fine, but then just sat there, never downloading even one bar of the SP2 download. When I pushed CTRL + ALT, the browser closed (IE5) before I even touched Delete. When the desktop was displayed, I noticed the word "Start" was missing from the button in the lower left hand corner. I went to click on it & the task bar disappeared as well as all the desktop icons. I have another drive, which is a SATA, (the previous one I was talking about is PATA), which acts like it is going to boot up, but stops on black screen just after the boot screen. I tried using the disk to fix it and it said it was replacing the security sector? on the files with a default security sector. It did this to over 140,000 files, but afterward it still wouldn't boot. I decided to have another go at it, but now when I try to use the repair console from the XP disk, it says it can't see a copy of windows on the disk to repair. The PATA disk, I should mention, was repaired several times before I wiped it, each time when I did CHKDSK, it found and repaired errors. I have even used the command FIXBOOT & it said it did, but to no avail. At one time I thought my memory might have been stopping it from booting, so I changed out both sticks for a single stick that I had, but no dice. Even after I had put the 2 sticks of memory back in, it did boot up a few times, but now nothing. Long story short---I've tried 4 different drives, all with XP & none will show up in the MB Bios or start windows. I'm now relagated to this Win98 dinosaur I got out of the trash to post this. I need a hand here.

[cauzomb]

Sounds like you have it narrowed down to the motherboard/cpu/psu have you tried the disks in another machine? Have you tried other drive cables/checked that the power plugs are making good contacts etc..


Did you clean everything out real good with a dust buster/vacuum/stiff bristle tech's "static free" tooth brush between the IC's etc. Your north/southbridge chips might need the heatsink/fan's cleaned, reseated with goop, your power supply could have a loose connection, could be full of dust overheating/undervolting, your graphics card might be OK,

Just some things you might have overlooked, try to eliminate them as possible causes. Maybe it's time to upgrade

[sandpaper600]

**UPDATE**
Thanks to the insight of Cauzomb, I am back up & running...sort of. Starting with the cheapest solution, I opened up the box & started cleaning out the dust. After seeing how much had accumulated, I decided to take the unit outside & blow it out. When I got it outside, I took the backside cover off (which I rarely do) & discovered the whole back of the MoBo was a sheet of dust!! I blew all this out & blew out the PS also. Looked like white Christmas!! I brought it all back in rehooked everything, using my SATA drive, & it went back to the welcome screen, then to black screen and stopped, same as before. I had some help files printed from a while back that walked you through using the recovery console to copy new config files into windows. So I did that & then rebooted. It did fine, but part of the recovery was to then copy some registry restore files from the sys info folder and put them into the windows tmp folder so that you can create some restore points after you restart. I did all this with no problems, but here is the kicker...when I restarted for the final time, it seemed to do fine, but when it got to the user logon page, I clicked my name and a box popped up saying I had to reactivate windows or I could not logon. I clicked the "Yes" box & it briefly clicked over to my desktop (about 1/2 sec.) then back to logon screen with the same activation message. It just goes round & round from there...Logon screen, desktop, activate. Once I did a cold start & it let me logon with out the activation screen, went to desktop, but no taskbar & was unable to right click on the desktop or to see task manager using CTRL + ALT + DEL. After about a minute, it went back to the logon screen and proceded with the round & round again. Other than that it's working beautifully! ;-)
I was able to put one of my other drives in and it started fine, but I need to get the trouble drive up and running. The trouble drive is a SATA & the one I'm using now is a PATA, if that is of any benefit.
I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I only hope it isn't a train

[sandpaper600]

GRRR! This stupid thing is bound & determined to make a liar out of me. Not 20 minutes after I made the previous post I had another crash. I was trying to get the SP2 download from WU, and the browser (IE) crashed to desktop. I moused over the area on my taskbar where firefox should have been & the box displayed "Empty". Then my desktop crashed...meaning all icons disappeared and the taskbar with it. On trying to reboot, no primary master was detected and if stopped at "Disc boot failure" again. After 3 attempts with no detection, out of frustration, I <smashed>, no, rapped the power supply with a screwdriver handle and lo & behold it booted on the next attempt. Coincidence? After seeing this, I've hooked a digital multimeter to a power tap in the box & I'm seeing anywhere from 11.68v on boot to 11.86v at idle. Is this within parameters or low?
I'd better post this before I crash again.

[cauzomb]

With the discription of all the dust in the machine, you might have early component failure due to overheating. The 12 volt line can drop quite a bit durring startup due to drive's spinning up. If you know the model number of your PSU, it should have white papers somewhere online that discribe the tolerances; +/- (numbers here)%. If the voltage is within that range, it would still be OK. The motherboard should also have specifications for voltage requirements.

If you have access to other parts, try another power suply.

Try booting in safe mode and running a backup of you important stuff, or pulling the drive out and backing it up with another machine. Then reinstal windows fresh..

To get into safe mode, press F8 after the bios power on self test is done, it helps to tap it rapidly durring that time.

If you can get into safe mode and it runs stable, your PSU and other hardware might be OK.

I'm not sure why you are getting the re-activation screen loop. Try searching at support.microsoft.com, it may have something to do with the recovery attempt, replacing files etc. If that is the case then you might be stuck with re-installing windows.

[sandpaper600]

I checked out my MoBo voltage specs my voltages fall within the parameters. The startup is so unpredictable. Sometimes it's fine, others it doesn't detect my drive. Sometimes it will crash 4 or 5 times starting. Safe mode makes no difference. The PATA drive is one that just had a fresh install put on it. On the SATA drive (with the looping problem) I finally just did a re-install on it. It booted a couple of times ok, then more crashing, like the PATA drive. I'm consigned that the MoBo is just toast. I ordered an ASUS P5N-E today we'll see where it goes from there.
Thanks for all your time. I think we can color this ticket closed.

As usual....IANAG ROCKS!!!!

[cauzomb]

You're welcome, sorry that you are having hardware troubles too.. Intermitten problems while booting can also be the power supply so it's usually swapped "first" just incase, atleast trying another one in it's place to eliminate it as a possibility.

The next bit of info isn't really related to your issue but I was thinking of a situation that gives endless re-boots; it is only related to the motherboard chipset drivers; and only durring windows installation. The chipset drivers were being replaced due to windows thinking that the chipset drivers are "un-trusted" unsinged etc.. This happens after installing and rebooting for the first time after the instal; xp reboots over and over...

I've only had luck avoiding that issue by using a custom xp slipstreamed disc that replaced the windows cab "trusted" drivers on the instal CD with the latest chipset drivers for my board, so windows cannot replace the drivers durring instal, or durring the reboot. You might want to keep that info in mind if you are doing a new instal and run into more reboots after loading your chipset drivers..

[acruxksa]

It's probably too late, but you should have a real good look at the motherboards capacitors. They have been known to fail and are especially susceptible when subject to excessive heat for extended periods (as in small cases with minimal ventilation). If you notice any bulging and or what looks like tiny specs of rust on their tops this would be an indication of failure.

The reason I mention this is that I have experienced similar issues in the past with a motherboard that had a couple bad capacitors.

[sandpaper600]

Thanx Acruxksa--- I got the Asus MB today & got it up and running. I had an issue early on...yep, Boot Disc Error. I went into the main page of the Bios, & there were no IDE drives listed AGAIN! I checked voltages & I found 3.2v on the 5 volt side of the plug. MAN I was torqued! I decided to unplug everything and restart just powering one hard drive. That was fine and voltage was 5.01 and steady. Then I brought the SATA drive online & restarted...just fine & voltage nominal at 5.0. I continued this until I booted with everything, almost. Everything was fine until I tried it with the floppy drive. Back to 3.20. Since I've left the floppy unplugged it's been rock steady on 5.01, Idle system or light CPU usage. It really doesn't dip much below 4.97 or 4.96. *sigh* I'll keep a volt meter on it for a day or two just to make sure. I can live without a floppy drive. I can get them for cheap if I find I really do need it, but I see new systems being sold without them. I think buying the new MB was probably not needed, but I stepped up to a board that I can upgrade a bit in the future. I had already maxed out the old one.
I'll keep ya posted.....

[cauzomb]

ouch, first time I've heard of a floppy drive doing that. can you try another cable with the floppy drive?