Computer freezes at BIOS flash screen

[imported_Dobey]

1. Overview of the problem
   Computer freezes at BIOS flash screen.
   
   
2. Full description of the problem and symptoms
   When I boot the PC from a full power off without flashing the CMOS it works fine, once, it boots into windows but takes an extremely long time for whatever reason, also a new symptom as of 6/12 after i reformatted it for the 3rd time in about a month in a half. I ordered a new HDD just in case my current one is dying (it has been 3 years since ive owned this current hard drive and I figured its time for a replacement). After the PC boots into windows it gives a black screen for about 2 minutes then shows the windows log on and loads the icons etc etc, then my PC runs fine while in windows. If I have to restart it I goes to the Abit flash screen and freezes, i have left this on before for hours at a time (while i was at work) and I come home to the same thing. I then turn it off, flash, the CMOS and try to boot agai, even after flashing the CMOS it still freezes at the same flash screen, a full power down fixes this issue until the next restart. A few other odd issues are as follows, prior to my reformat last week the PC would be running fine and then the monitor would lose connection to the SLI video cards I am running, (XFX 9800GT's ), the HDD's were still spinning and everything was running but I had to manually power off the system. I attributed that to the cards running hot, and maxed the fans at 100%, dropping their idle temps from 77-78C to 62-64C, then if I played any games they would go up to about 71C. Besides that video card issue, if it was a video card issue, nothing else really happened, I receive no error messages of any kind from any part of my PC boot cycle, BIOS, and windows do not give me an error at all, it either freezes or doesn't boot into windows fully. If anyone would like pictures of this happening, I would be glad to post a few of the BIOS freezing, and I could also post video, although forgive the Blackberry quality . Also I am posting this message from the troubled PC currently, because it did boot today.
   
   
   
   
3. Did it work normally at one time, or has the problem always existed?
   The problems first started happening with the BIOS freezing about 2 months ago, the start of May, when I came hope from work one night and we apparently had a thunderstorm, my PC was on at the time, and 24 hours prior everything was 100% fine. I assumed perhaps, the BIOS has gotten overloaded and I needed to reflash it, which I did, after I reformatted the HDD. After that BIOS flash I have not experienced this issue again until recently and this time after flashing the BIOS this problem persists.
   
   
   
4. Is the problem consistent and repeatable, or entirely random, or semi-random?
   This problem is 100% repeatable because it happens everytime, unless I do a full power down of the PC.
   
   
   
   
5. I already tried these steps:
   I thought ok maybe if it isnt a HDD issue then maybe it could be a RAM issue, so I ran MemTest86 over night and it did 9 full passes without one error, so I figure that it is not a RAM issue, and I am pretty sure it is a BIOS issue. I have checked my CPU temps, video card temps, and they are all normal while idle and under load from what I can tell.
   
   
   
6. My software:
   • Windows XP Ver. 5.1 Build 2600 SP3[/i])
   • Avast 4 Home edition (the free one)
   • No true firewall
   
   
   
7. My hardware
   • Abit KN8 SLI
   • AMD64 socket 939 Dual core 4800+
   • XFX 9800GT in SLI with an identical card
   • G-Skill 2 1GB sticks from the same package
   • Antec Tru Power 650w
   • Two identical Seagate 250gb IDE drives
   
   
   

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Oh btw thank you to the person that posted the troubleshooting start thing, its really helpful.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Those are some high temps for a video card in idle, whats the rough ambient temperature? (the temperature in the room more or less)

Next step: If you truly believe its a BIOS problem (which I don't) I'd say try replacing the battery in the board. They cost just a few dollars and should be replaced every once in a while (also this would support your "doesn't boot unless completely powered down" description)

Have you followed the more or less "standard" way of troubleshooting? Since from the BIOS splash to Windows actually loading, the ram and CPU are the two hardest working components I'd say try booting your system with just 1 stick of ram, then swap to the other.

Edit: Also make sure your boot order in the BIOS is correct, if you have something like an mp3 player or flash drive plugged in and the BIOS is trying to boot from that first, it might hang like my system used to (not sure why that problem went away actually...). Might want to check over boot and powering order just for the hell of it.

 

[imported_Dobey]

I should have mentioned but ofcourse forgot to, that I have tried the one stick of RAM with both of them, the issue repeated itself and neither stick by itself changed the issue(btw the RAM is DDR1). Then I ram memtest86 and figured if there was an issue it would pick it up but after 9 successful passes I'm dumbfounded.

The ambient temp of the room currently is a controlled 68F, the cards had dust issues which raised the temps but I've since fixed that(that was ladt montrh). Surprisingly 77C is considered 'normal' for this specific card when it idles at 40% fan speed (which is stock). I was shocked but it is a slimline card and has a strong fan but a small heatsink, apparently a lot of users of this card have the same heat problems/concerns. The ambient temp of the case I am unsure of, but I just keep the case door off because. Of the peristent cmos resetting and various other things, I would imagine it is the same general temp as the room.

If there's any other questions or suggestions throw them at me, I may have forgotten to list them or haven't tried them yet, but I have tried a lot.

One thing I've mentioned is, could it be a HDD issue, I don't know how that would effect the bios other than not being able to detect the disk. When the bios doesn't freeze it displays the cpu, disk, and ram, but when it does freeze it stops after only displaying the processor on the boot menu, I can post pics tonight. So could that mean it doesn't detect the HDD? I have ran spinrite on its level 4 setting (if anyone uses spinrite) and checked the HDD for errors and it came back clean which confused me even more.

Thank you for the help.