Startup and Installation Woes

[gilthanan]

I guess it would be best to start at the beginning. I was playing Settlers 7 on my computer when during an in game cinematic the game started to freeze and stutter, eventually to the point that I felt it necessary to restart the computer. I was unable to get out of the program, so I had to use my instant restart button. The computer started, and I tried the game again, but this time during the starting cinematic it stuttered and froze, causing me to decide to give up playing the game, and to restart again.

Upon restart, my computer made it to the Window's screen, that pops up before the login, but the screen was different. It had the logo, but I noticed faint green lines running up and down the screen. I let my computer sit for some time, and it was unable to get past this screen, the windows logo would go from it's throbbing eventually to doing nothing. I assumed I had a hard drive error, but Window's repair and Hard Drive scanner were unable to find any issues, and since these were the only tools available to me since I found myself unable to get past the Windows logo screen, I made the decision to just reformat.

I pulled out my windows 7 disc, and started installing. It begins the install, shuts down after doing updates, and starts up. For the first install I chose boot option "1," which is boot from disc, and for the restart I choose "2" where it does not boot from the disc (discovered this after trial and error because Windows fails to describe what the options are in the selection screen.) It seems to be going fine, Windows starts doing the "completing installation" when the screen will go black, and I will be left with only a blinking cursor in the top right. I will let it sit here, but noting happens. I shut my computer down, and when it starts up I lead it back to the Windows install screen where it says that the computer restarted unexpectedly and I need to redo the install. This has been happening for a while and I find myself unable to fix it.

Initially I was also having some errors where it would shut down saying that I had a CPU overheat, but today I went out and got a heatsink designed for overclocking and new paste, and redid it, and since then that issue hasn't arisen again. I really have no idea what steps to do from here, but I've noticed people with similar issues but ones that I'm not sure can help me.

I have Windows 7 64 bit
Intel E6600 2.4 ghz duel core CPU
nVidia 8800 GT 512 Mb GPU
3096MB GSKILL 800 RAM

 

[gilthanan]

I'm starting to believe I may just have a GPU issue, I'm using my old hard drive with XP installed and it also fails to get past the start up screen, but it does allow me to use safe mode and get to the desktop. However, I notice that on the windows screen there is an alternating pattern of dots. Would this be responsible for the Windows 7 failure to install?

 

[Jonmor68]

It looks like you have a faulty GPU which is causing overheating, if you have onboard video, remove the video card and try it with the onboard one.

 

[gilthanan]

Thanks for the reply!

I was able to install Windows 7, using a method I found on the windows social forums. Disabling the video card in the device manager during the second stage of the Windows installation. shift f10 then devmng.msc (device manager) Also remove any unnecessary things, such as sound cards, that can be installed later. It seems to get caught on updating these devices.) I was able to get onto my desktop and start installing my firewall, etc.

However, now that problem 1 is removed, I still have the issue regarding the classpnp.sys file, which happened immediately upon restart. I have not found any answer online that has delivered a successful result. It seems that Window's gets caught on this file and is unable to move past it, and starting in safe mode merely just shows you that this file is the one that is at fault.

I can say however that reformatting and reinstalling windows does not solve the issue, since I just attempted that. I have not found any answer to this issue that users seem to have universally seen as successful, and some (such as using ubuntu to replace the file) seem time consuming, and most likely a temporary solution. Has anyone found a successful answer to this problem, or identified the reason for this issue?

I will keep looking.