Computer reboots during "Starting Windows" screen, works in safe mode

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Arrek

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Apr 5, 2015
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A couple of weeks ago my PC made a loud pop and stopped working. After replacing the power supply it is behaving very strangely.

When trying to start Windows 7 (64, Home Premium) in normal mode, it seems to lose power briefly - the power supply fan and the CPU fan stop momentarily, then it does a hard reset. Usually this happens on the "Starting Windows" screen with the glowing Windows icon, but sometimes it gets to the login screen.

When I boot Windows in "safe mode with networking" it boots okay, but runs very slowly.

When trying to boot from the Windows install disc, it goes through loading files for a few minutes then does the same thing.

I have replaced the motherboard and, as mentioned, the power supply.

The system had been running fine for five years previously.

System details:
Gigabyte P55A-UD3 motherboard
i5 750
2 x 4 GB RAM
Tried two graphics cards, my old 9600GT and this current one, some sort of NVIDIA 660

There is nothing relevant in the event log, except to say the system restarted unexpectedly.

Has anyone here seen behaviour like this before? I am in despair about what to try next.
 
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Dee Kay

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Dec 22, 2014
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Your system is running into a driver or setting that it doesn't like. Make sure you have all updated drivers installed including BIOS. Check for any problems in device manager and try to fix that issue first. Did the problem get better with one of the video cards or no? You can try unhooking one device at a time to see if you can isolate the issue if nothing is in device manager. Check admin logs to see if any of the error messages point to any specific device.

Run memtest86 to check you ram for errors. Run chkdsk /f to check your HDD. If you see a bunch of errors then you may need to run one of the third party HDD testing tools. Also run SFC /scannow to check your file structure. What did you replace your PSU with, a new or used device and what make/model is it?
 
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Arrek

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Apr 5, 2015
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4,510


Thanks for the reply!

The problem was identical with both video cards. I didn't think it was a driver, as the problem occurred booting Windows even from the installation DVD. I didn't run memtest as the system was stable in safe mode, which would be unlikely with faulty memory.

I went through the remaining hardware I hadn't tried disconnecting. Upon both the hard disks, the system would boot from the Windows installation disk. So I tried connecting the boot drive to the Marvell SATA chip. (The P55A-UD3 has the Intel SATA controller, which I believe is built into the P55A chipset, and a separate Marvell controller). With the hard disk on the Marvell controller the system works fine again.

A bit of a mystery then, but the system is working again, yay!
 
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