Computer Help Needed.

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CT

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Jan's machine appears to be completely fubared at the mo.

Short version - booting got more and more erratic and eventually wouldn't boot at all, kept going so far and then coming up with 'no signa'l on the monitor and rebooting over and over in a continuous loop.

The system recovery disc which came with the PC also only booted so far and kept going into the same continuous booting cycle. I had exactly the same problem when trying to restore a fresh copy of XP or even '98 for starters.

I've checked the hard drives and the RAM in another PC and they're OK. I've also stripped out every component except the graphic card, keyboard and mouse. It's still not having it.

At one time I was getting a missing system32\initpki.dll message , but now I just get the blue screen of death an IRQ lesser greater warning and a string of numbers.

Processor is a Pentium 4 3.4 ghz with hyper threading
Geforce FX5 700LE graphics card with 256 meg of onboard RAM
Motherboard is an MSI... no idea which one.

The only things I haven't checked are the graphics card and the motherboard so I'm starting to suspect it's one of those. I can't see anything suspect in the BIOS.

Any ideas gratefully received before the lot goes in the bin!! :bang:

;)
 
Ct - all experiences I've had regarding booting, re-booting etc have been graphics related. I can only recommend getting the latest drivers for your card, otherwise I agree, the card or mobo have gone. Also Microstar don't have the best reputation and are usually used as a generic mobo. Sorry...but it doesn't sound good.

regards
 
Thanks guys.

That looks promising Doddy. It would be great if I hadn't formatted the drive and deleted the old version of windows. :D I have a CD called BART PE which runs a version of XP direct from the CD ROM, and would probably enable me to make those changes, but even that wont boot the machine - I get so far and get 'No signal' That's trying with either the CD or DVD drives. :shrug:
 
The fact that monitor signal has been iffy, indicates a gfx card problem obviously.

Reboots I would have put down to either something iffy with the windows installation (either drivers), or PSU.

My money's on the GFX card first, with the PSU a hot runner up.

At risk of pointing out obvious things, what happens in safe mode?
 
Hmm. cheers bod. I'll try the graphics card out of this machine. If I disappear altogether you'll know I've bolloxed this machine as well. :lol:

If I need to replace that card - any recommendations for something as good or better? Don't wanna spend too much.
 
Marcel said:
At risk of pointing out obvious things, what happens in safe mode?
Click to expand...

There's no Windows install on there .
 
Marcel said:
My money's on the GFX card first, with the PSU a hot runner up.
Click to expand...

Wot he said :thumbs: , although I would suspect them in reverse order :D
 
It may well be a memory error / bus problem. If you're running the memory at it's highest speed (always advisable!) and the bus is iffy (or RAM) then you can get these booting errors. On self-test the memory may well be ok - you can start to get boot problems when Windoze moves into 32 bit phases! (I had exactly this RAM problem once [just one DIMM array] took a while to crack! Wouldn't let me re-install Windows - or rather it would until it started moving 32bit stuff around).

The RAM can test ok in another machine 'cos that bus may be running at slower rate and is, therefore "not on the edge".

All hypothetical - it can be so many things!
 
CT said:
There's no Windows install on there .
Click to expand...

What, at all?

How you getting the Blue Screen of Death?
Or is windows saying there's no install, when you try safe mode.
 
Had this exact problem myself only a few days ago. The problem? Dust in the AGP slot. Take the graphics card out, clean the AGP slot (just blow it, but use compressed air if you can as you'll get a face full of dust if not. Then re-seat the graphics card in the AGP slot and make sure the lil retaining clip is pushed down.

[edit] oh, and give the card itself a clean in the same way - they tend to get covered in dust with being right next to the CPU.
 
Well that's the graphics card eliminated! I'll try your suggestion though GfK. :thumbs:
 
Thinking about it i had something similar once with a graphics card that was not seated properly so GFK could be on to something (with luck as its an easy fix).
 
long shot, but have a look @ the capacitors on the motherboard. There was a spate of leaky ones (of which I've had 3 motherboards from 3 different manufacturers) which caused bizzare issues like you describe.

They system is relativly new so it shouldn't be a problem however. (newest I have displaying this issue is a P4 2.8)

Another thing to check is the CPU temperature. You can leave it running in the PC health part of the BIOS. This will load the CPU. If temps are high then this can also indicate a problem. In this event, give the HS & CPU fan a good blow (ooo er) as dust can be a very common cause of overheating.

Also, removing the thermal pad and reseating the CPU with proper thermal compound (e.g. arctic silver) would probably help.

GFX card is unlikely to cause booting issues although it's by no means unheard of. EDIT: Should read the WHOLE thread first ;)

Most likely tho is a duff mobo.
 
Cleaned the card and reseated it. In fairness, it wasn't very dusty at all - or the slot... still no go.

I found out the mobo is an MSI TG 865PE and these problems with it aren't unheard of at all. Also once the system is configured for Recovery Disk, then any deletion of partitions or fresh Windows intallations will prevent the recovery CD working after that it seems.

There's no real rush to get it sorted, but the more I read the more I'm just inclined to change the motherboard..... for something else.

Thanks for your help peeps... much appreciated. :thumbs:
 
I get similar problems to this every now and again, I've got an MSI 865 HT p4 3.0 GHZ. My problems is it cycles as its rebooting over again for about 4-8 times, also with no signal, then a black screen comes up with some garbage about american trends blah blah 'Dram timing is to tightly - reload' 'press any key to continue' I do so and it boots up OK. This happens in phases. :thinking:
 
Glen.. that was pretty much how this one was, except all we got was the 'no signal' message. It would boot after a few attempts, but eventually it just wouldn't boot at all .
 
For future reference when a pc will not boot this fixes it 99% of the time.
boot from the cd when you get the option, press r for recovery console. choose your windows installation, enter your admin password or hit return 3 times, and then at the prompt type chkdsk c:/r
 
Have you tried setting the bios to failsafe defaults?
 
The last time I had this problem, it was down to faulty memory (not mine).
 
You should download and burn one of the bootable CD memory checkers. They basically sit there and check the memory but also this in turn checks the BIOS and motherboard as a side effect.

The one I used was called memcheck86 or summit like that.
 
Matt said:
The last time I had this problem, it was down to faulty memory (not mine).
Click to expand...

LOL. That was my first thought , but it checks out OK in the other machine. I've tried re-seating it, swapping slots etc.
 
CT said:
LOL. That was my first thought , but it checks out OK in the other machine. I've tried re-seating it, swapping slots etc.
Click to expand...

Some motherboards don't check the RAM at the top speed of the FSB, all it checks is a count of all the available RAM addresses/locations. Try changing the speed of the buses so that the machine runs slower (like an abacus!) so the RAM doesn't miss the clock counts. RAM can deteriorate with age and heat.

Looks like classic RAM issues to me..... :bonk:

Does the other machine have a slower bus speed? If so it would account for the memory being seemingly ok!
 
Try out this computer forum site http://www.certforums.co.uk/index.php? there's always loads of experienced people on there to help. Also have you considered the CPU, a couple of pc's ago i had similar problems where my pc just started crashing and then on reboot would go into a loop counting ram or freezing while counting ram, turned out to be the CPU!!!.

anyway hope you sort it soon
 
I know you said you had tried everything CT but have you tried replacing the power supply?
 
Had the same problem over the weekend with a freinds' PC.
It was a damaged boot file.
Choose Boot to safe mode and select the option to stop the auto restart when it falls over.

This will give you the screen with the error description when it happens.
If it says 'Unmountable Boot Volume', set your bios to boot from CD first, insert your XP disc and on the appropriate screen select the option to type 'R' for repair mode.

This will eventually give you a black screen with command prompt.
Type C:\ chkdsk /r which will run a routine to check and repair your disk.

If that doesn't work, replace the above routine with c:\ fixboot
When it's done (in both instances) type exit and as it reboots, change your bios back to boot from hard drive.

EDIT: Sorry Gary...I crossposted you.
 
Steep said:
I know you said you had tried everything CT but have you tried replacing the power supply?
Click to expand...
i had similar problems lately and found it to be the power supply. it finally blew up in a big bang last week and my new one seems to have fixed all the booting, re-booting and seemingly graphics card related issues.
 
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