HELP I've been working my computer for 2weeks off and on and still cant fix it!

[hellfire88]

Hi,
As the title says, I've been workin on my computer for 2 weeks (off and on of course) and still cant get it to work properly. Let me first start off with my "original" specs for my computer:

Antec Lanboy Aluminum Mid-tower case with Antec 350W "Smartblue" power supply
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe V2.0 nforce2 Ultra 400 motherboard
512mb PC2700 DDR RAM (generic)
built by ATI 9600XT 128mb video card
Maxtor Diamondmax 9 Plus 160GB 8mb cache 7200RPM hard drive
Liteon 52/32/52 CDRW
Toshiba 24x CD-ROM
Panasonic Floppy drive
Microsoft Windows XP Home SP1

One day, i was online, and then suddenly, my computer froze, so I rebooted, only to find that it would not load into Windows. So I tried again in "safe mode". The computer seems to hang on this file called "mup.sys" which, after doin a quick google search, seems to be WinXP's way to communicate with novell servers? I had no idea what to do, and even decided to reformat (since its been awhile anyways). Unfortunately, it would not even let me do that. Any flavor of OS based on Windows NT (Windows XP home or pro, or even Windows 2000 Professional) would get to the blue backgrounded screen, load all the primary drivers, then hand and freeze when it says "starting Windows" (right before the main menu where it asks you to press 'R' to repair, one of the F-keys (F3?) to start a new installation etc.). The only OS I had that worked was Windows 98, and even that was iffy at best because it was having trouble finding all my devices. At first, I thought it was my generic RAM, so i borrowed a friend's RAM from Buffalo technologies, pretty good RAM. It did the same thing. Then I tried reformatting a lot of times to no avail. One time though, after hanging at the "starting Windows" part for a few hours, a message came up saying "Disk I/O failure" or something to that effect. Therefore, I suspected one of the IDE controllers on the motherboard, so I cursed ASUS, and went ahead and ordered an Abit NF7-S from newegg.com. I recieved the motherboard on Monday (3/22/04) and replaced the motherboards and set everything up. Much to my dismay, I was having the same problem. So I suppose it was NOT my motherboard. I borrowed a friends computer and swapped our video cards, RAM, etc. and still the same thing. I even tried 3 different hard drives to see if it was my maxtor (I tested an 80GB IBM Desktar and a 10GB Western Digital) and still, same problem, so I suppose its not the hard drive. The only other thing that it could be is the Power supply (what my friend says, he claims that maybe NT based OS turns on more devices at start up than Windows 98SE or something)? I will attempt to swap out the power supply tonight. Any of you have any ideas? I am seriously stumped, as am 3 of my friends. I have disabled all integrated peripherals (USB 2.0 port, firewire, NIC, etc.) and installed nothing in the PCI slots. Someone please help! I will be eternally grateful!

Best Regards,
Brian

 

[Motero]

I've had a similar senario...when you format the drive, do you fdisk it first? Try this...totally get rid of the partition and try again. Maybe there is corruption in the boot sector? Are you overclocking or anything?

 

[hellfire88]

Hi,
Yes, I used fdisk as well as downloaded a bootable CD with a utility called killdisk that supposedly kills all the data. Still a no-go. Do you think it could be the PSU (and what my friend says is true? that Windows XP may enable more devices at startup than Windows 98 SE, and hence, needs more power that a damaged PSU may not provide?) Thanks again for your replies!

 

[boshuter]

It could very well be your psu, you never mentioned in the first post that it was damaged. As far as what your friend is telling you, I don't know what he means by "enables more devices", it can't enable more devices than you have. I have xp pro running on a sff gateway with a 150watt psu, your Antec 350 should be more than enough.

It sounds like you have it narrowed down to either the power supply or the cpu.

 

[hellfire88]

Hi,
I do not know if the PSU is damaged. My friend just said that it "May" be damaged. I supposed it is narrowed down between the PSU or CPU , thanks, and keep the replies coming if you have something different to add!

 

[AEnigmaWI]

hrm..i had a similar freeze up and hard crash on my ASUS board system, but it was with a P4 and diff chipset so..

I was overclocking and running along fine then one day it froze hard, and I couldn't get it back. Unfortunately, I had to go for a new board, as the BIOS on the stupid ASUS got lost in limbo trying to recover from a failed adjustment attempt. I don't know if I agree with the ATOT article about the ASUS being awesome for FSB overclocking. In my small experience, ABit has much superior BIOS options. ANYHOW

I would suspect your power supply, as it's the only thing besides the CPU that you haven't swappped out. Also, make sure that you are installing from a non-overclocked speed. Turn the sucker down to stock, slow the RAM timings down etc..

CPU's tend to either work or fail in my experience. You could have your power supply tested, or check out the voltage monitor in the BIOS and see of the voltages for the various rails are close to their rated point.

Just for fun too, try one RAM chip at a time in the Abit. The ASUS A7N8X is pretty intolerant of lots of kinds of RAM. (I have one, and it was a biotch to get it working) In fact, my A7N8X system did EXACTLY the same thing yours is when trying to install windows (hang right before press R to repair). I was able to fix it by buying two matched Kingston DDR chips that were specifically listed as compatible on the ASUS website. Everything else I tried failed miserably. You may be able to pick up a chip from a circuit city or best buy where you could return it if it wasn't useful to you.

Good luck! I will be watching for more info

 

[hellfire88]

Hi,
Thanks for your reply AEnigmaWI. I haven't had a chance to swap out the PSU, I will do so tonight. If that doesnt work, I suppose it leaves the CPU then. This is turning out to be very frustrating. I am going to sell my Asus A7N8X and keep the Abit NF7-S I just got. If its the PSU that is indeed the problem, I will be looking for a PSU that is very quiet as I strive for a quiet PC. Do you guys recommend the Zalmann or Enermax Whisper PSUs? Or is there a better brand than either of these? I need reliable rails first, then quietness. Thanks again!

 

[AEnigmaWI]

I have seen several positive and thorough reveiws of the Zalman. I would recommend it based on that, and it's reputed quietness.

What happened with the PSU swapout?

 

[Farmer]

Wow, I'm having the exact same problem. Im wondering if there is any way to just repair 'mup.sys.' Though, I doubt it is anything hardware-related (at least in my case), as there was no crash, I turned my computer off, and the system was like this the next time I turned it on.

I've found that many people have had the mup issue, but most of the solutions require the use of the recovery window at XP install. Unfortunately, the install gives me a disk error when I try to run recovery mode (when loading SATA driver from A. ANy other solutions?

 

[hellfire88]

I found the problem! I did the PSU swap and it was still doing the same thing, so I swapped the last possible thing that I didn't swap yet, the CPU. Finally, it worked! I booted into my previous installation of Windows XP Home with no problems. I really should reformat for a fresh install of windows since I swapped CPUs and Motherboard (i decided to keep my Abit NF7-S and am selling my ASUS A7N8X Deluxe V2.0), but that will take a lot of work, so if it works now I will keep using it for now. I have to try to get my CPU replaced under warranty. I was wondering, if I apply Arctic Silver 5, does it void the 3year AMD warranty for retail-boxed CPUs? Thanks again!

Oh, and farmer, I heard that some people who had the same issue discovered that it was a USB card problem, so if you have a PCI USB port card, remove it and try it. Otherwise, they say you can try plugging in a USB mouse...then right after it gets frozen at 'mup.sys', unplug the USB mouse and it will miraculously start! Didn't work for me but might work for you. Good Luck!