Boot problem

[MickJ]

After posting on a problem with a friends machine, mine is now playing up.

 

At boot, the POST (Power on self test) loads and then either hangs with a black screen and the monitor showing the 'going into sleep mode' notice.

 

Or, it shows the windows 'splash screen' and then hangs.

 

After 2 or 3 attempts we finally have lift off and windows loads OK. From this point everything works with no problem, until the next cold boot.

 

Running WINXP Home SP2 on an Athlon 2100 with 512MB of DDR SDRAM. Motherboard is a Leadtek WinFast K7NCR18D / K7NCR18D Pro / K7NCR18DM / K7NCR18DLM. Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400.

 

Hope to get an answer before the fatal crash. Is this a sign of a Hard Drive on the way out or something less sinister like some software corruption?

[peterpikefisher]

try a restore to a point before this happend ,have you added any progs if so restore to before install

[MickJ]

Thanks pumphypete

 

Nothing added and nothing taken away, now where have I heard that before?

 

Will try your suggestion and see if improves the situation.

[Ian FG]

Mick,

 

I think the lack of responses to this post indicates that it is too difficult to solve here probably because it could be one of a thousand things causing this. Not much help I know.

[UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk]

Locks during/shortly after the POST itself - usually memory or knackered hard disk.

 

Are you getting any odd clicks or pings at the locking point (indicative of serious hard drive failiure). If you can sub out the memory for a friends for an hour that could well be the culprit.

[MickJ]

After a complete failure of the system, the fault was diagnosed as a faulty Motherboard.

 

Fortunately I had a three year on-site warranty and had no trouble getting replacement under this guarantee. Only took 4 working days from my first contact before the problem was sorted.

 

System now back to full health, thanks to the support staff at Evesham Technology, who I cannot praise enough for the quality of their service.

 

I also appreciate the help given here, even if no-one got it right. Nice to know someone is there to offer help when we have problems. Just wish I knew more so I could help others more than I do.