Need help with booting problem?

I would start with testing your memory. Either pull out the memory you have, and then insert it one stick at a time (don't put them all back in, just each stick seperately), booting the system after each stick.

Or you could download memtest 86 or some other memory test suite. This may be an issue for you since you are having problems getting into your machine.

This problem is familiar to me, but i can't place what I did to fix it just yet. I will check back if I remember what the heck it was that I did.

When you encounter any issues with your computer, the first thing to think about are any software or hardware changes. First thing you should try is to remove your RAM and reinstall one stick at a time. Be sure when doing this you reinstall the one stick into the correct slot as indicated by the manual.

If or when you get past POST, get into the Windows Advanced Boot Options menu, and select "Last known good configuration" or "Start Windows in Safe Mode". Either way you choose, do a System Restore or uninstall the recently added ATI software.

Doing the above steps will eliminate the question of wheter or not the recently added software is the culprit, but just in case you have to, use the troubleshooting guide:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-postin...

Thanks for the suggestions  
As to the troubleshooting guide, I read that and thought it was for new builds. And can software really cause boot up problems? As I really need this software to control my graphics card, because the overdrive feature does NOT work in the ccc. And I need to adjust these settings for good graphics (otherwise I get artifacts and the card is not set for default settings). Starting to think I should just go buy another card and not a diamond multimedia graphics card (they have been very unsatisfactory as for "customer service" goes).

None the less I will try those troubleshooting tips and will try to post back with results.

i would guess that your power supply is starting to fail slowly.

hmmmm... I restarted the comp a few times and it starts normally, no issues. I guess it only has the problem from a "cold" startup. I could see a power supply issue then or maybe mobo? As this is my only comp and I am not rich, so it will be hard to swap parts or just buy another PSU.  


Keep in mind I have had this comp (basic components) for some time, just over a year now. The newer components are the graphics card and PSU (installed about 6-7 months ago), installed win7 about 2 months ago. Other then the GC giving me some problems with graphics it has been a good comp setup with little to no real big issues.

Check your BIOS. Make sure that the RAM timings and voltage are set to manufacturer's specification, which can be found on their website.

Run MemTest, as iBoomer had mentioned. Go to memtest.org and download the ISO (disc image) of MemTest86+. Burn the image to CD. Restart computer with MemTest86+ disc still in the optical drive (make sure the boot priority is "Boot from CD").

Also check if there is an update to your BIOS.

ok went and unistalled the ati tools tray (in which case I didn't have an option, as on a startup the windows/boot files got corrupted and had an image from an earlier date for recovery). But even in doing that I still have the issues with startup.
As to T_T saying to check memory settings in bios: I went to OCZ website and found some info on the ram/mobo combination. One of their techs replied to someone else similar combination (mobo and ram), to which the only difference was basically the cpu. I knew when I built this system that with my cpu I had to drop the ram freq to 400Mhz (for ddr2 800 is max for my cpu). Also mentioned was to set the ram volts to 1.9, in which case mine is already set there. Now the timings is something else, as I cannot see in bios how to adjust that or even see what it is set at (mobo is ecs gf8200a v1.0) and bios is up to date, because before I installed win7 I had to make sure the bios was ready for 64 bit and such.

Now as to the Memtest....
I went and tested just now and here is the results (I am listing all of what I believe is important).
Memory: 4095M 3522Mb/s
Chipset: AMD K8 IMC (ECC: disabled)
Settings: RAM : 442Mhz (DDR885)
CAS: 5-6-6-18 / DDR2 (128bits)

Walltime - 45:35
Cached - 4095M
RsvdMem - 264K
MemMap - e820
Cache - on
ECC - off
Test - std
Pass - 1
Errors - 0
ECC errs - (blank)

I hope this helps?


At this point I think I will keep the comp up and running all the time until I can get this resolved.

Was your system experiencing this trouble before installing Win7? If not, check to see if all of your hardware is compatible. To accomplish this, I would check each hardware manufacturer's website.

However, assuming that your parts are compatible, I would then address the boot file corruption. Hardware malfunctions, such as bad RAM, can sometimes cause this type of failure, but more often than not it is a software conflict.

By the way, what were the results you experienced after going through the troubleshooting guide? If you need to revisit the guide, click on the link in my signature.

Update: I have figured out it is not the software I recently added and is not any hardware because as I said it was working fine on win7 and with all hardware for atleast 2 months of every day turning on and shutting down. This just started happening out of the blue. Only other thing I could think of was maybe a recent windows update, but when I had to restore it to a date from about 1 month ago and know it uninstalled everything after that date (it was a image I made when I knew everything was working fine and for a month or so). I would do that after I know everything is working good just in case something like that would happen. FYI: when I went to manufacture for bios update it did say there is a known issue they resolved with the update. The known issue is some machines would have a problem booting because of the S3 power management in bios.

But, instead of shutting down the comp now I put it into sleep mode and it comes out of sleep just fine. Which again makes me think it is in the bios. I tried to update the bios but this time I ran into a problem. It said I couldn't because it wasn't the right drivers for my setup (assuming it meant win7 64bit). I have vista 32bit on it and will see if I can update bios through that.