Cold Boot Problem XP pro

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

Hard drive faults can be temperature dependant. I have a machine with a
Samsung hard drive that is left in the on/standby state permanently. If I
turn the machine off and allow the drive to cool to room temperature
(generally above 20C/68F) then the hard drive which passes all diagnostics
can not be recognised for 5 minutes or so until it has time to warm up.

From the clicking noise that you describe I would say the fault is
definitely a hard drive fault.

--
Jonah
"JK" wrote in message
news
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

I forgot to mention one other hardware adjustment that I made to eliminate
the hard drives as the problem. I have 2 80 gig hard drives, one of which
is the C: drive with the OS on it. I thought the C: drive might be the
problem so I swapped the 80 gig hard drives, one for the other, and used
Ghost to write the OS to the other drive. I changed the jumpers and
switched the cable so the system would boot from the other 80 gig drive.
Same problem. The other drive clicked as well. I made sure that there was
no page file on the second drive so as to eliminate any possibility that the
system would need both drives to boot. When both drives clicked under the
same conditions, and after eliminating the cable as the problem, I concluded
that the controller on the mobo is wonky.

JK

"Sleepless in Seattle" wrote in message
...
Hard drive faults can be temperature dependant. I have a machine with a
Samsung hard drive that is left in the on/standby state permanently. If I
turn the machine off and allow the drive to cool to room temperature
(generally above 20C/68F) then the hard drive which passes all diagnostics
can not be recognised for 5 minutes or so until it has time to warm up.

From the clicking noise that you describe I would say the fault is
definitely a hard drive fault.

--
Jonah
"JK" wrote in message
news
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

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.




Long story, short. listen to the "Click." Replace the hard drive.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

Well, I figure both drives can't be failing at the same time. So I decided
to replace the motherboard. We shall see tomorrow morning.

JK

"Bruce Chambers" wrote in message
...
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.




Long story, short. listen to the "Click." Replace the hard drive.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

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

I finally sent my C: drive back to Western Digital for replacement. The
drive I replaced it with, however, does the same thing on a cold boot.
Norton System Works 2005 diagnostics is reporting memory allocation errors
in Win XP, so I'm going to track that down by removing my memory sticks one
by one and seeing what happens. Otherwise I have done everything I can
think of including buying a new mother board and doing a fresh install of
Win XP. Nothing has worked so far.

JK

"DG" wrote in message
...
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