Cold Boot Problem?

[Slogun]

Not sure if I have a cold boot problem or just an intermittent boot issue.

What happens intermmitently is the computer will stop booting and freeze partway through the initial bios boot screen. It will stop at seemingly random points in the boot screen and I will need to turn the power off and reboot and it will usually boot up fine then, or sometimes freezes a second time. The computer works fine once booted.

I run WinXP Pro, on a P4 2.6C overclocked to 3.3GHz on an Abit IC7-G Max2.
Antec TruPower 430watt ps, 1024 MB of Corsair PC3200.
I built this comp last summer and just started having this problem about 2 months ago.
Further specs, if needed, can be found in my sig.

I have, so far, tried flashing the BIOSs to the newest version, eliminating the overclock , updating/changing ATI drivers, swapping in a different video card. I have also tried booting to the WinXP CD/repair console and tried / fixboot and / fixmbr.
I have tested for viruses, spyware, adware and have applied all of the microsoft updates.

Any other ideas/suggestions are welcome.

 

[Slogun]

anyone?

 

[blodhi74]

do U have 9700 pro or a 9800 pro??

 

[Jojo7]

If it's freezing on the bios screen, you could update video card drivers till you're blue in the face and it won't change anything. The video card drivers dont even get loaded until windows starts booting up.

Are you sure it's freezing on the bios screen and not the windows loading screen? If it's the bios screen, it's a black screen with white text (counting ram, detecting drives)

That said, I would guess it's either a problem with your drives (jumpers not set correctly or a bad hard drive) or a problem with your memory.
Looking at your specs, I'm wondering if that sata/ide adaptor is causing problems. Try it with a regular ide hard drive if possible.

 

[Slogun]

Thanks for the replies guys.

blodhi74, it's a 9800 Pro.

Jojo7, yes, it's the BIOS screen.
I don't see how it could be incorrect jumpers as the problem only appeared relatively recently.
I was thinking perhaps the sata adaptor might be causing problems, one thing I haven't tried yet. It's a fairly simple matter to reconnect the drives as ide.

Yes, I knew video drivers were probably not related, but updated them recently anyway and mentioned that so no one else would suggest that route.

 

[blodhi74]

I had the same issue with 9700 pro and per ATI it is a known issue and they recommend changing the PSU .... I did that but still get the artifacts on cold boot but it is happening less and less

 

[Andyman53]

Sounds like a ram issue to me, Try booting with IDE, and if you still get it, Take all IDE devices out and see what happens. Still happens? Take all but one stick (alternate sticks) of ram out and see what happens. You might have defective ram modules.