System booting problems

[seismik]

Hey, having some worrisome problems with my system. I shut it down every night, and lately when I boot it up in the morning it usually freezes part way through the boot, usually when it's about to put up the XP user sign in page. Just a total freeze, no blue screen or anything. I hit reset, and usually it then comes up ok, though sometimes it requires a 3rd attempt. Once it's up, it runs completely ok -- games, Internet, whatever... it's just getting it to that point.

I've installed updated drivers for everything I could find... makes no difference. I have gotten two blue screens playing DVDs in the last week or so with KERNEL_APC_PENDING_DURING_EXIT and BAD_POOL_CALLER error messages, no idea what to make of those though.

Looking for what I can do to isolate this problem and find the culprit -- no new hardware installations or anything to set this off... or even software for that matter short a few XP updates.

seis

 

[stevty2889]

system specs would help...could be a lot of things, overheating, bad memory, weak PSU..virus's, spyware..dying hard drive..

 

[seismik]

Well, I'm pretty sure it's not spyware or viruses -- I'm pretty careful with what goes on there and I've got an arsenal of antispyware programs that I run from time to time to clean things up. Which leaves the overheating... I highly doubt that as once it's up it's pretty rock solid, even in games that push my temps up.

Bad memory -- I'll check that, memtestx86 should be able to confirm that for me right?

Weak PSU -- possible, but you'd think again that it would be on more than just booting that this would show itself.

Dying harddrive -- what's the best way to check on that?

Lastly, you didn't mention it but my biggest suspect right now is my video card, though as I've said, once the system finally does boot it's all good and I don't notice any problems at all.

System specs are in my sig. I guess I'll have to try to start isolating these things -- or alternatively it's getting close to time to wipe out my current install and freshen things up so maybe I'll just do that. If you've had any experience with similiar symptoms, please post 'em and let me know.

seis

 

[stevty2889]

The link to your rig doesn't work...but yeah, use memtest to check the memory, and use your manufactures diagnostics tool to check the hard drive. Have you tried safe mode, to see if you can get the issue to occur there? If it happens even in safe mode, the pretty much gurantees a hardware issue.

 

[seismik]

I'll give it a shot booting up in safe mode a few times -- good idea. As my sig link wasn't working I just copied it over here. My 380W power supply could be a little low huh... probably time for something bigger there regardless of it's the culprit.

 

[stevty2889]

Actualy a 380w antec should be plenty for that system. I was running a 2.8 prescott @3.5, with a 6800GT, dual raptors, a gig of ram, and nec 2510a with a 350w enermax. You've got all quality parts in there. Have onboard sound? Sound blaster is known for having driver issues causing all kinds of strange problems.

 

[Big Lar]

How does IRQ's look from msinfo32? I had a prob recently and tracked it down to Spysweeper at boot. As to the Irqs, check them and see who's sharing with who,I run a soundcard in Pci slot 2, which shares with the Onboard NIC, and I thought for sure that was my boot prob, but I guess it wasn't. My point is, you need to Isolate instances, for instance, it could be your Anti Virus trying to update at boot, or in my situation it was Spysweeper. Could also be Overclocking software creating a problem at boot. I finally got mine figured out over about a weeks time, by disabling 1 item at a time to boot.

 

[seismik]

stevty2889: Ok, good to know about the power situation... I do have onboard sound, you're suggesting pulling out the Audigy and checking to see if that helps? I've got the onboard sound disabled in the BIOS right now, but easy enough to turn that on.

Big Lar: I don't totally follow on the IRQ's. I took a look and it's my AIW 9700 sharing with my USB host controller for example, but what can I do with that info? It has been working in this config for literally over 18 months with no problems, which sounds an awful lot like hardware failure to me. Just so odd that once it boots it's totally stable.