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Blank screen on reboot

H

HO

Senior member
I'll make this as brief as possible. I have a Tyan K8E rev 1.0, in which I was using a Matrox P650 PCIe . About half the time, a REboot would end up in a blank screen.

Thinking that my video card was fubared, I yanked it and switched to the onboard ATI chip. Same result. XP Pro appears to start normally, but when the driver should kick in (after the splash screen)... nothing. As far as I can remember, cold boots always work. I've monitored the PSU under load and I rarely see it waver more than a tenth or two on the 12v rails.

Any ideas?

Tyan K8E
Athlon64 X2 4400+
XP Pro SP2
2G Corsair RAM
Enermax 485W PSU
Antec P180
 
Most likely it's software related. Check your msconfig and disable any startup items you don't need. I also had a problem like this with Style XP. I had a different logon pic which caused the corruption.
 
Another clue: when the reboot ends up in a blank screen, eventually the HD activity light comes on and stays on, although I don't hear any thrashing going on.

Another clue #2: I bought a new version of Ghost (9) because I thought my old one was incompatible with XP. When starting in DOS (recovery) mode, it would usually end up in a blue screen (not the BSOD kind), just a blue screen with no text, as if the program never finished loading. Well, my new Ghost did exactly the same thing when I booted off the recovery CD, and I noticed the HD activity light was on just like when booting into Windows.

Does any of this make sense to anyone? It sure doesn't to me. It might be software, but XP reinstalls don't cure it so I have my doubts.

What about IRQ conflicts? I know those aren't supposed to be a problem anymore, but the video card is sharing with two other devices.
 
This sounds like the same problem I'm having sometimes with the Abit AX8 motheboard. The HD activity light comes on a stays on and just a blinking cursor on the screen. If you find a solution to this problem PM me.
 
No solution yet, but another clue: The Power switch is inoperative during any of these failed boot sequences. The only way to shut the box down at that point is to use the switch on the UPS.

From bits and pieces I've read, it sounds like the video card is not initializing at times. Is it a power management thing? Can I turn off ACPI in the BIOS without borking everything?
 
Are temps ok? Have you tried a minimum hardware config(just what's needed to boot-1 stick ram etc), memtest? Disable anything in BIOS that your not using. Check device manager for any conflicts. Are you using Cool&Quiet, overclocking?
 
Yes my power switch is inoperative also when it doesn't boot up. I have to physically cut the cord. lol. Using Amd Cool and Quiet and no overclocking. I am about to run memtest. I also thought about trying another brand of power supply like a Seasonic as some people have said maybe motherboards are not compatible with certain power supplies on the Abit forum.

Yes temps are great. Don't think any windows drivers are being loaded at all because it sometimes stops after seeing the sata listing screen not after win bootup. Device manager says everthing is good to go.
 
why disable USB in bios? Looked at the AX8 thread and it said to go to minimal power options in Windows power options in control panel. Noticed several degrees Cs drop in temp drop after doing this. Idle is 29C and Load is 37. One person said that when using Amd cool and quiet it allows better throttling after going to the minimal power setting. I will monitor the boot up and see if it now boots correctly instead of being intermittent. Playing a few games last night..... it seemed that it would stutter more at certain times with this setting however.
 
Originally posted by: vanvock
Are temps ok? Have you tried a minimum hardware config(just what's needed to boot-1 stick ram etc), memtest? Disable anything in BIOS that your not using. Check device manager for any conflicts. Are you using Cool&Quiet, overclocking?
Click to expand...

Temps are a bit high, 42 at idle, high 50s under dual instances of Prime95, but I am not alarmed. Memtest runs for 24 hours with no errors, as does Prime95. I have disabled 1 COM port and my PARALELL port. As I mentioned, this also occurs sometimes even under DOS when booting into Ghost 2003 (uses PC DOS), so I am assuming this rules out any OS issues--but I don't know enough about how DOS initializes hardware to draw a conclusion vs XP. I *was* using CnQ, but I disabled it early in the troubleshooting. No overclock. Device mgr. does not report any conflicts.

This is really a hit and miss thing. I've seen it fail as many as 6-7 times in a row. I've also had it succeed 7 times out of 10. As stated earlier, a boot from a power OFF condition never fails, so my contention is that my video is just not being reset/initiallized when rebooting with power ON. Doesn't seem to matter whether I go to Shutdown>Restart or hit the Reset switch

 
Since my Lian 2100 doesn't have a reset switch I can't warm boot the machine. But when booting from cold... no power applied (I have a rocker panel switch surge protector) thats when the machine fails to boot intermittently.
 
Originally posted by: timecop67
Since my Lian 2100 doesn't have a reset switch I can't warm boot the machine. But when booting from cold... no power applied (I have a rocker panel switch surge protector) thats when the machine fails to boot intermittently.
Click to expand...
Hmm, your problem seems to be the opposite of mine (if I read your description correctly). FWIW, someone with a similar problem (XP boots after warm boot but not cold boot) fixed it with a repair install of XP. OTOH, mine never fails from a power off to power on boot.

I found a MS Knowledge Base article that has this to say about cold boots vs warm:

SUMMARY
When troubleshooting hardware issues, using the power on/off switch yields the most consistent testing procedure. If you suspect a hardware problem, particularly an adapter card problem, using the power switch, rather than the CTRL+ALT+DEL key combination or the Reset button, is recommended.

MORE INFORMATION
A warm boot, accomplished by pressing the CTRL+ALT+DEL key combination, restarts the computer through the INT19h ROM BIOS routine. This warm-boot procedure usually does not go through the complete boot process; generally, it skips the power-on self test (POST) to save time. In addition, a warm boot frequently fails to reset all adapters in the computer's adapter slots.

If you use the Reset button to cold boot the computer, it generally restarts the boot process, including the POST. However, this procedure does not necessarily discontinue power to the motherboard. If the power is not interrupted, the cold boot may fail to reset all adapters in the computer's adapter slots.

To ensure that all adapters are properly reset, you should use the power switch to turn the computer off. Leaving the power off for ten seconds ensures that all the capacitors on the motherboard have time to discharge and should also give the hard disk drive a chance to stop spinning.

NOTE: Using other reboot methods, such as CTRL+ALT+DEL or the Reset button, is acceptable when a hardware problem is not suspected.

I thought the section dealing with using the RESET button was informative. MS considers this a COLD boot, but acknowledges that adaptor cards may not be reset using this method. Too bad they didn't provide a solution.

 
RESOLVED: When I stripped out all my hardware to send the system back to Monarch, I could not duplicate the problem. I added all my stuff back piece by piece until, finally, my Seagate SATA "caused" a reboot failure. I moved the mobo connector from SATA1 to SATA3 and now everything works like it should.

Weird.
 
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