Windows stopped working and will not boot

[zman88]

I had a very similar experience with a 533 Asus MB . And is was the MB

[rjs735]

I agree with CTAL. I didn't look too closely at the failed drivers loading. I also agree that setting up the drivers is anything but the commonality of the failed drivers is more indicative and the south bridge access to memory and i/o would definitely put a damper in loading the OS.

Unfortunatley the only way to fix this is a new board.

Just had a thought you might want to look for some bulging or leaking capacitors on the MB. That might explain everything.

[maxidius]

After exhausting all guesses and trials, the symptoms continued for almost another week, which disrupted my work as much as it drove me nearly mad. The PC just reboots or hangs at any moment, and it happens several times in a day !!

I decided to do one more last thing: change the memory sticks to the second lots. To my surprise, now the PC works for almost a day without any of previous trouble. I will see how long my PC can go on like this. But, you can guess how peaceful my day can be.

[traveler]

Thanks Buds for all the replies.

Originally Posted by XJ.

Looking at the drivers that didn't install and the problems you had trying to do a clean install, it does look like the board was fried (multiple components like audio, serial I/O, USB ports, etc aren't able to load). I can't be 100% positive, but I think it's real bad news bud

The USB ports do work. Mouse and Keyboard are USB. Also, after booting to Safe Mode, if I plug in an external USB hard drive, Windows will detect it and set it up and it will appear in Windows Explorer with complete access to it. I can even access the USB drive from another computer on the network.

Originally Posted by ctal

What most of those devices have in common, aside from the AIW-related things, is the Southbridge chip. I'd first physically touch the Southbridge and see if it seems abnormally hot. Then I'd try disabling in the bios as many of the devices as you can for which drivers were listed as not loading in the ntbtlog listing. Then see if you can boot the os, and if you can, re-enable the devices in the bios one-by-one.

I don't think that getting past the "loading drivers" step in the W2K clean install is conclusive of anything -- the installation s/w might have set up drivers without realizing at that point that the corresponding hardware had a problem.

HTH,

-- Al

I can touch the Southbridge fine; feels just a bit warmer than my hand. I have full functioning access to all drives, both locally and over the network.

I unplugged everything except the SATA hard drives, RAM, and video card. Sent a ghost image of the OS to the SATA drive hoping to get a boot off of it since I usually use the primary PATA drive. Same results. Computer boots fine to Windows Safe Mode but not to Windows GUI Mode.

Originally Posted by INVALiD

This is a very weird phenomenon. I hope you get to figuring it out.
Kind regards
C

Very weird. Everything seems to work but Windows won't boot except to Safe Mode.

Originally Posted by zman88

I had a very similar experience with a 533 Asus MB . And is was the MB

Originally Posted by rjs735

I agree with CTAL. I didn't look too closely at the failed drivers loading. I also agree that setting up the drivers is anything but the commonality of the failed drivers is more indicative and the south bridge access to memory and i/o would definitely put a damper in loading the OS.

Unfortunatley the only way to fix this is a new board.

Just had a thought you might want to look for some bulging or leaking capacitors on the MB. That might explain everything.

RAM and CPU seem ok. They pass Memtest. All hard drives can be accessed. I have seen pictures of bad capacitors and I must admit that the pictures looked ok to me; unless they have white stuff coming out or are clearly cracked, I couldn't tell. The ones I can see on my board look ok but ....


This was an instantaneous blowout of the 400 watt power supply while HalfLife 2 was loaded and active.

So, what's left (except permanently converting this box into a permanent NAS device with expandable USB storage running under windows safe mode)? (If I try to RMA it will Asus send me a Rampage Extreme to replace it? )

[traveler]

Originally Posted by maxidius

After exhausting all guesses and trials, the symptoms continued for almost another week, which disrupted my work as much as it drove me nearly mad. The PC just reboots or hangs at any moment, and it happens several times in a day !!

I decided to do one more last thing: change the memory sticks to the second lots. To my surprise, now the PC works for almost a day without any of previous trouble. I will see how long my PC can go on like this. But, you can guess how peaceful my day can be.

Hmmmmmmm. I might try that.

[rjs735]

If you can run in safe mode then it is definitely a driver issue. I have seen this before.

I wonder if re loading the drivers for the MB from Asus before the OS load would help. Safe mode uses real mode drivers that is why you are alive in safe mode.

[ctal]

Trav -- Did you try my suggestion of disabling everything you could in the bios? On my P4C800 Deluxe, which is probably fairly similar, the bios allows disabling AC97 Audio, the Promise RAID controller, 1394 port, lan/nic, serial ports, parallel port, game port, and selecting how many usb ports are enabled.

Also, did you go through all of the bios settings, especially under "advanced" and "power," to make sure that nothing was somehow changed or corrupted when the supply went? For instance, I think I once read that changing the setting for acpi 2.0 support from what it was set to when Windows was installed will cause Windows to be unbootable. I'm not sure if that's still true, or was ever true, but it's an example of why I think you should not overlook the possibility of the problem being bios-related.

For that matter, if you haven't already I'd suggest clearing cmos and redoing your settings from scratch. If that doesn't help I'd reflash the bios completely. There's nothing to lose. I once had a problem with a P4C800 Deluxe that was cured by redoing all the settings in the cmos, to the same values that it had previously indicated it was set to. Apparently the indicated setting and the setting it was really applying to the hardware were not the same. It has worked fine ever since, for more than a year.

-- Al

[traveler]

Thanks for the replies Buds.

Originally Posted by rjs735

If you can run in safe mode then it is definitely a driver issue. I have seen this before.

I wonder if re loading the drivers for the MB from Asus before the OS load would help. Safe mode uses real mode drivers that is why you are alive in safe mode.

Per the P4P800 MB manual, it says after the BIOS setup to next install an operating system. After the OS install it says to next insert the support CD with the drivers. I don't remember first needing safe mode when I first built the P4P800 deluxe. And I'd like to do a clean install.

Originally Posted by ctal

Trav -- Did you try my suggestion of disabling everything you could in the bios? On my P4C800 Deluxe, which is probably fairly similar, the bios allows disabling AC97 Audio, the Promise RAID controller, 1394 port, lan/nic, serial ports, parallel port, game port, and selecting how many usb ports are enabled.

Also, did you go through all of the bios settings, especially under "advanced" and "power," to make sure that nothing was somehow changed or corrupted when the supply went? For instance, I think I once read that changing the setting for acpi 2.0 support from what it was set to when Windows was installed will cause Windows to be unbootable. I'm not sure if that's still true, or was ever true, but it's an example of why I think you should not overlook the possibility of the problem being bios-related.

For that matter, if you haven't already I'd suggest clearing cmos and redoing your settings from scratch. If that doesn't help I'd reflash the bios completely. There's nothing to lose. I once had a problem with a P4C800 Deluxe that was cured by redoing all the settings in the cmos, to the same values that it had previously indicated it was set to. Apparently the indicated setting and the setting it was really applying to the hardware were not the same. It has worked fine ever since, for more than a year.

-- Al

I did do a cmos clear and reset a while back. I always have all unneeded things turned off. I have not reflashed the BIOS, only a cmos reset.

Perhaps gremblins have taken up permanent residence.

[ctal]

What I meant by my suggestion was not to just turn un-needed things off, but to turn EVERYTHING off in the bios (aside from what is necessary for booting, namely things needed to support the monitor, keyboard, and mouse). That way Windows won't see the items you've turned off, and won't try to load drivers for them. Then see if you can boot. If you can, selectively re-enable things in the bios until you isolate which thing(s) are causing the problem.

Regards,

-- Al

[rjs735]

Originally Posted by traveler

Thanks for the replies Buds.



Per the P4P800 MB manual, it says after the BIOS setup to next install an operating system. After the OS install it says to next insert the support CD with the drivers. I don't remember first needing safe mode when I first built the P4P800 deluxe. And I'd like to do a clean install.

I didn't mean for you to do an install in safe mode. I am merely suggesting that if the os install fails with the MS default drivers which may leave some devices with a yellow question mark after the install and then you load the Asus drivers for those devices they then function correctly. I am merely suggestion that you preload the Asus device drives first not unlike when you do a reinstall with the drivers already loaded.

Probably won't make any difference since the reimaged HD fails the same way and that has all the correct Asus drivers installed.

I am beginning to think the board is DOA.

Since a fresh image on another physical drive fails the same way it proves my point that a virtual drivers is failing due to inability to load or the driver to access hardware it needs to function in virtual mode.

The only thing left to do is go down to minimal system . Video card, 1 hd either pata or sata and pick 1 or 2 stick of ram. I would try the reimaged sata with this config to see if it still fails. There should be no cd drives or any other device. If you have usb KBD / mouse I would dig up a wired KBD and mouse. See what happens.

[SpeedDMN]

Originally Posted by rjs735

I am beginning to think the board is DOA.

I'm afraid that was my best guess after reading the first few posts. Hope I'm wrong. Good luck dude!

[traveler]

I just bought a used P4P800 Deluxe "freshly removed from a working computer" on ebay. It's rev 2.0. Mine is rev 1.02, one of the early releases. Other than a later BIOS release, any other differences?

(this is delaying my new build)

[traveler]

The "new" used P4P800 Deluxe arrived and has been installed.

Amidst all the beep code warnings and boot up crashes and freezes, it did boot to windows. All the strange beep codes and freezes disappeared when I updated the BIOS from the arrival then installed 1012 to 1019 installing all the in-between BIOSs on the way, and did the usual necessary tweaks.

Except for the two differences I noticed between the rev 1.02 board and the rev 2.0 board (northbridge heat sink and the video card lock bar) things are back the same.

Can I fix the old motherboard now? Any ideas on how?