Weird boot problems

[Mac]

Just completed building a new PC using spare parts which included a brand new in the box ECS K7VZA motherboard. Picked up the mobo in a close out about a year ago, dirt cheap, and never got around to using it. It is an VIA KT133A mobo w/686B southbridge. I am donating the PC to my church and the intended purpose is a word processor/email machine. Should be more than adequate in that role.

Everything came up fine without any issues which really surprised me...never used an ECS mobo before. Got it online to the Internet, downloaded latest VIA drivers and flashed the bios with the last update. Ready to deliver it and found a quirk which has me stumped.

The system will freeze up during boot if it has been completely disconnected from all power. Hangs while it is checking the DMI settings. If I do a hard reset, it will then boot into "Safe Mode" because it wasn't powered down correctly. If I then do a "Restart", the system comes up fine without any problems and will continue to boot properly after that, unless I disconnect the power cord. Then the hang reoccurs.

Some would say, what's the problem, just don't unplug or turn off the power strip? That doesn't really work because, I live in central Florida, the lightning capital of the US (maybe the entire world), so disconnecting anything electronic makes sense if at all possible.

Any ideas what the problem may be? Here's the pertinent info...

Mobo ECS-K7VZA
Video Radeon 32MB
NIC Siemens
Sound On-board Via AC '97
OS WinME

Pretty sure I have all the latest patches, etc. Appreciate any help?

 

[KF]

>If I do a hard reset, it will then boot into "Safe Mode" because it wasn't powered down correctly.
That means Windows was the problem. It got past all the BIOS startup things.

It seems to me some people have pinned this to an initialization problem. For some reason a device does not get enabled or reset quite right during power up, but the second time around it does.

Some people have had problems with enabling/disabling USB, or parallel ports, or power management in the BIOS. You could try it both ways.

Did you try it without the NIC? Maybe switch slots.

If there is an option in the BIOS for non-plug-and-play OS, you could try reversing the choice. For non-PNP the BIOS sets up all devices, but Windows redoes them all.

I once ran into a problem where it took like ten minutes for Wme to come up when I had a NIC installed but not connected to a network. It took that long for Windows to try all the "defaults" before it decided the NIC really wasn't connected. I don't think 98 or XP are either as weird as ME.

If you can find old versions of VIAs 4 in 1 drivers, they may work better. That is an old chipset and VIA has long been more concerned with the later VIA chipset's performance.


Did you get the latest Radeon drivers? Beautiful video, but ATI can be very weird.

If this is an AGP card, you could try having the BIOS intialize AGP first instead of PCI.

 

[Mac]

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Going through your comments:


>Some people have had problems with enabling/disabling USB, or parallel ports, or power management in the BIOS. You could try it both ways.

Hadn't thought about trying that but wouldn't take too long. Will try this evening (PC is at home)

>Did you try it without the NIC? Maybe switch slots.

No. Brand new NIC so would be surprised if that was a problem, but can try it if other optoins don't work. Did not enable any of the WOL or other related features which would require a steady power state.

>If there is an option in the BIOS for non-plug-and-play OS, you could try reversing the choice. For non-PNP the BIOS sets up all devices, but Windows redoes them all.

This may be the first place to start....believe it is currently set for non-PNP. Hadn't thought of that.

>I once ran into a problem where it took like ten minutes for Wme to come up when I had a NIC installed but not connected to a network. It took that long for Windows to try all the "defaults" before it decided the NIC really wasn't connected. I don't think 98 or XP are either as weird as ME.

Hmmm? I gave up after a couple of minutes and didn't consider this. I'm not real keen on WinME but decided to use it because it wouldn't cost anything extra. Everything else I run at home is either XP or 98SE. I had weird problems with ME before but was installing it on a refurb mobo so was never sure if it was the OS or the HW.

>If you can find old versions of VIAs 4 in 1 drivers, they may work better. That is an old chipset and VIA has long been more concerned with the later VIA chipset's performance.

Don't want to go there if I don't have to...think that could get messy trying to get all the old drivers out of the system and go back in with older set. According to VIA, newer releases are supposed to be backward compatible but must factor in VIA is a second tier (being kind at that) chipset maker.


>Did you get the latest Radeon drivers? Beautiful video, but ATI can be very weird.

Yep, but don't think that is what it is. Don't believe there is anything on board the card which would get scrambled.

>If this is an AGP card, you could try having the BIOS intialize AGP first instead of PCI.

Already did that.

The more I think about, believe it may have something to do with the networking. Connecting to the Internet via cable through a router. Seem to recall during initialization, the system attempts to verify IP settings, gateways, etc.

Like I said, "weird boot problems".

Thanks again.