RE: Cold Boot Problem XP pro

From: DG (DG_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 02/03/05 

Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 09:31:04 -0800

I have a similar problem but not related to temperature. In safe mode it
hangs up at mup.sys. The hard disc is OK it works in another machine. Any
ideas?

"JK" wrote:

> I have spent the last two or three weeks trying to solve a difficult pc
> problem and thought I would share my experience in the hope that it would
> help some others. While googling for answers to my problem I saw many posts
> from people who were just as frustrated as I was with similar problems.
>
> Three weeks ago I turned on my pc for the first time that day. The machine
> was cold. The boot process started normally and then just died at the XP
> boot up window, the one where the little blue progress bar moves across the
> screen. I tried to restart using Ctl Alt Del but the machine was locked up
> solid. I noticed during the boot process that one of the hard drives made a
> clicking sound. I hit the reset button and the machine booted up normally
> with no problems and no hard drive clicking. Since that day, when the
> machine is turned on for the first time in the morning, the same thing
> happens: the first boot dies at the same spot with the hard drive clicking,
> and then a reset results in a perfectly normal boot with no hard drive
> clicking. If I reset the machine any time during the day while it's on, it
> boots without any problems. If I turn if off for a few hours and let it
> cool down, and then turn it on, the first boot fails as above.
>
> That clicking sound bothered me because I know that it can be a sign that a
> hard drive is failing. So I downloaded the Western Digital diagnostic tools
> and ran several full tests including a scan of the media on all of my
> drives. I have 3 drives, 2 80 gig drives on IDE port 0 and 1 200 gig SATA
> drive. All of the drives passed their tests. Two of the drives, including
> my C: drive are relatively new.
>
> To eliminate the possibility that there could be a software problem I tried
> booting into safe mode on the first boot of the day and the same thing
> happened. The boot process died at the same spot, and a reset resulted in a
> normal bootup. The last driver to load was mup.sys during the failed boot.
> I did a repair install of windows xp but that did not fix the problem. The
> event viewer for system events showed that everything was fine. No errors
> reported. Boot logs showed no error. It looks like the problem occurs
> before any logging starts.
>
> I decided that I had a hardware problem. The first thing that came to mind
> was that I had a failing power supply, however, my PSU is a relatively new
> Antec Pure Power power supply rated at 550 watts. So I don't think that is
> the problem. Motherboard Monitor did not indicate any power problem at all.
>
> To eliminate the possibility that it was the SATA controller, I disabled the
> SATA controller on the mobo and disconnected the power from the SATA hard
> drive. That didn't fix the problem. I replaced the IDE cable for my 2 80
> gig hard drives and that didn't fix the problem either.
>
> Since all of the hard drives and cables checked out that left the
> motherboard as the culprit, an A7N8X deluxe version 1.04 with an Athlon
> 2800+ cpu. On two occasions, rather than just letting the machine go
> through the boot process first thing in the morning, I went into the bios to
> the hardware monitor and waited until the cpu temperature stabilized. I
> then saved and exited the bios and let the machine boot. Sure enough, no
> problem. The PC completed its first boot of the day normally, no clicking
> hard drives. No reset is required when the pc has a chance to warm up.
>
> I have concluded that there is some component on my motherboard, probably
> related to the IDE controller (because of the clicking hard drive(s), which
> is in the process of failing. If I let the motherboard warm up a bit this
> component starts to work and all is well.
>
> I spent more than two weeks trying to sort out this problem and at times it
> was very frustrating. I thought I had it solved several times, only to have
> the machine lockup the following morning. I still have the problem, but
> think I know what it is now. So do I replace the motherboard with the same
> model, take the opportunity to upgrade to an Athlon 64 machine, or just buy
> an IDE controller. Decisions decisions.
>
> I hope sharing my experience helps some other people who have had similar
> problems.
>
> JK
>
>
>