WinXP Pro only loads with 'Boot Logging' enabled?

[Robor]

I upgraded my primary desktop system from an A64 3200+ to an Opteron 170. I upgraded my Nvidia chipset drivers (per Asus recommendation) prior to flashing my BIOS and putting in the new CPU.

When I first booted POST reported that it recognized the Opteron correctly and Windows started to load but hung on a black screen (right before it would normally begin loading the desktop). I tried safe mode and it hung again. Just for kicks I tried using the Enable Boot Logging option and it loaded.

I then shut down and attempted a reboot normally again. Once again it hung. I tried with boot loggin enabled and it booted all the way. The system has been stable other than that.

Any ideas? This is really weird. 😕

 

[Smilin]

that's up there with the wierd ones, yea.

Some kind of odd race condition.

Safe mode or safemode with networking work?

Also try using whatever method to get booted then run msconfig.
On the last tab hit disable all.
on the 2nd to last tab hit 'hide all microsoft services' then hit disable all.
Reboot normally. Any change?

 

[Robor]

I tried both Safe Mode and Safe Mode w/Networking. Both resulted in a hang at the same point.

I'm at work right now and the system is home but I'll try those msconfig changes and see what happens. Will report back tonight.

Thanks for the help! 🙂

 

[Robor]

Okay... I did the disabling of non-MS services and the system booted normally. I renabled all of the services and the system booted normally. That was last night.

I got on the system this morning and as soon as I tried to launch Firefox it crashed. Attempts to relaunch crashed. Opened task manager and it crashed. Hmmm... Rebooted normally. Checked Event Viewer and found a bunch of errors under Application saying programs had crashed.

Shut down and ran MemTest86 for about an hour with no errors. Booted it back up and that's where it's at now. This system was 100% stable with my old A64 3200+ even overclocked from 2Ghz to 2.5Ghz (memory running @ 4:5 though). Now it's running at default speed and voltage and I'm having boot problems and stability issues. I dread a reinstall as I've got several games installed that I don't want to lose.

 

[Smilin]

Just be sure your game saves are backed up. If you blow a drive or something you can reinstall them.

This is starting to sound a bit like hardware. You may want to test your PSU. Disconnect everything, get a paperclip to jumper the green wire to a black ground so it will come on. Use a resistor from radio shack to put it under a small load and test with a multimeter. google a bit - there are some more detailed instructions out there.

 

[Robor]

Well, the system has become completely unreliable. When I boot I hit 'Del' to get into the BIOS but only actually get there maybe 1 in 5 tries. When I originally posted an attempt to boot Windows was about a 50/50 thing. Once in Windows I had frequent explorer.exe crashes when moving data around on the drives. I ran chkdsk on C and it scanned clean the locked up on the post check boot. On the next boot it wanted to scan again because it didn't think it finished and I couldn't skip it because it would respond to the keyboard (it's USB). It scanned again and booted Windows. I did some more troubleshooting and saw a spew of Windows Defender errors in Event Viewer so I uninstalled it and was prompted for a reboot. Now I can't get it to boot in safe mode, with logging enabled, or just a regular bootup.

I think I got Windows corrupted as a result of a bad motherboard. The (POS designed tiny loud) chipset fan has totally stopped working as well. I'm dumping the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe in favor of the 'DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert' that seems to be popular.