Resetting PC?!

[Squid_uk]

Hey guys, when turning on my system when the log on screen appears if i click straight away on the user name the system loads the desktop then about 10-15sec later it resets itself however if i leave it on the log on screen for roughly 10-15mins it will log on fine! Also i have noticed if i use say the Quicktime Movie trailers site or any site using quicktime to display videos the system will restart, this also happens when trying to upload .mov files using videoegg, i have tried removing quicktime and installing again but still getting the same problem. After the system has reset and once i have logged back in i get the following error report

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/Squid_uk/ErrorReports.jpg

When sending the error report this is what was returned from the MS website

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/Squid_uk/Microsoft.jpg

Just to inform you when playing good spec games like Fear, Half Life etc i DO NOT get this problem and the game runs fine.

Any ideas what is causing this problem

[Scorpion King]

It looks like a driver problem. Click Start - right click "My Computer" then choose Properties - click the Hardware Tab - click the Device Manager button. Check for problem items. Probably won't see anything flagged, but there could be....

Might be video related. You could reinstall the video card software/drivers. What makes me think that is because the resolution and refresh rate changes that might be happening at that point of boot up. But I don't know. There is a lot going on at that point. lol

Good luck.

[Squid_uk]

It looks like a driver problem. Click Start - right click "My Computer" then choose Properties - click the Hardware Tab - click the Device Manager button. Check for problem items. Probably won't see anything flagged, but there could be....

What sort of area should i be looking at?

[redwudz]

You'd be looking for a yellow check mark, but usually with one of those, a driver won't load. You could try booting in safe mode, as it doesn't install most device drivers. If it boots normally there, maybe a driver problem.

I'd agree about video card drivers. That's the most common problem for reboots at that stage. Reinstalling them would be easy enough. You might also try using MSconfig. Type that in a 'Run...' window and you may be able to find which drivers may be causing problems.

Is this a recent problem? Any newly installed software or hardware?

[Squid_uk]

Umm the only time i can think when this started is when i turn the system on and i get 'DISK BOOT FAILURE, PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK' the way i get round that is just leave the XP disk in the drive,

[Scorpion King]

I'm assuming, by reading that error report?, that a software driver for one of your hardware devices isn't loading properly causing the error. This can be cause by bad hardware device, a driver that needs reinstalled, and probably many other things also. If the driver didn't install on bootup Windows will most likely 'flag' the device in Device Manager. If the device is 'flagged' then you will be able to see this flag (probably a question mark) located beside the device listing which will narrow down your problem quickly. Then you could simply reinstall the device driver that may fix the problem.

Since Windows will sometimes continue to run the device may not be flagged making finding which device is causing the problem more difficult.

XP has an Event Viewer that might help here. Click Control Panel - Performance and Maintenance - Administration Tools - double click Event Viewer - on the left panel click System - scroll down the list on the right side and look for the error report that helps determine the problem. Hopefully this will help.

If there are many events listed and you get overwhelmed then you can clear the event listings, close all programs, and reboot with the hopes the helpful event will be easier to find. Problem here is Windows may be not be writing the event log before it crashes. lol

Another method, if none of the above turns out helpful, if the problem is hardware related is to disable hardware then reboot trying to isolate the one piece that is causing the problem. This may be easy and work right off or may not help much. It all depends on which is causing the problem and if you disable the right one or not. lol Can be frustration if the device is not flagged to start with.

Booting into Safe Mode can be helpful. Boot to Safe Mode and disable the problem device in Device Manager then bootup normally. The device will not be enabled that way and Windows should then boot with crashing. Which pieces to disable is hard to determine, especially from here.

If the problem is truly a driver issue and it only happens after the welcome screen then it very well 'could' be video related. I think Windows changes the resolution/refresh rate at that point. But like I said before - there are many things happening at the same time which is going to widen the possible problems by far.

Take a look at Device Manager for anything flagged. If you find something then try reinstalling the driver for it. You do this by double-clicking the flagged device then click the Driver Tab then Update Driver then keep telling XP either NO or Not this Time then "Install from a list" then Don't Search I'll choose the Driver to Install. This should show you a box with the devices name listed. Usually simply clicking on NEXT will reinstall the drivers, but sometimes you will need to click on "HAVE DISK" then actually have the disk (the cd) then punch the right buttons to make XP search the disk looking for the proper .inf file it needs. This sounds complicated but if you take it slowly and think before clicking it's actually easy because XP will be searching for the .inf file (a file with a name and .inf extention that contains the information XP will be needing). If you don't know where this .inf file is and XP can't find it then you can run searches for *.inf in Windows Explorer on the disk yourself then go back through the Update Driver deal again and point XP to that particular folder. But XP does a pretty good job at searching CD-R disks looking for drivers, far better than some of the older versions of Windows did.

Not to hurt your feeling but there are many things that can be wrong making windows crash. lol

Do you have a restore point you can restore back to a time when windows wasn't having this problem? Might be the easiest fix you have. If so then hopefully that will work.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.

[Scorpion King]

Umm the only time i can think when this started is when i turn the system on and i get 'DISK BOOT FAILURE, PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK' the way i get round that is just leave the XP disk in the drive,

I was typing (at about 8 characters per second ) while you guys were talking.

That disk boot failure changes everything.... More than likely you are lucky and need a new hard drive. Get a big fast one that will hold lots of video.

[Squid_uk]

christ that doesnt sound good the system is less than a year old!

[EAO]

Def sounds like a driver conflict or program conflict.

Has your PC always behaved this way? Hopefully not. Assuming not - can you try a system restore and chose a day when you had no issues to restore back too. That is the easiest fix to try.

While a driver conflict may show an exclamation mark in properties if Windows 'thinks' it installed fine then there would be no exclamation mark even though a problem exists. For example, if you updated your video card drivers they may install fine - so show no exclamation point - but in actuality still create a system conflict and need to be removed.

Curious: Is your PC overclocked? If so run it at stock and see if that fixes it.

Another less likely possibilility is if you had a powersurge (Any lightening or power losses recently? Is your PC on a UPC?)) that parially damaged something like your RAM or videocard. Only real way to diagnose is to remove components and reinstall each one at a time between boots to see if the problem goes away. But as I say this is a less likely possibility.

A much more drastic solution is to simply 'be done with it' and reinstall windows (or run your recovery disc if you have a prebuilt). Keep in mind you will lose all you entered data and installed programs. If you go that route and it works - then it was def a software or driver issue.

As always following any advise is at your own risk. If you don't feel comfortable doing so you'd be better off taking it to a reputable PC shop.

EDIT: Missed the boot disk failure note. Sounds reasonable to me.

[Squid_uk]

No it has not done this before, Now i could definitly say yes cause to the power surge cause where i live the power station is not the best and causes a lot of power fluctuatuions and cut outs,

When checking the device manager i found these,

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/Squid_uk/Device.jpg

[Scorpion King]

christ that doesnt sound good the system is less than a year old!

You read faster than I can type, for sure.

If it boots sometimes and sometimes it pops up the 'disk boot failure' then there is definitely something wrong with the drive. I had an old system years ago that I had the lid off and the drive unbolted and laid on top. When I got the 'disk boot failure' error I'd hold the drive in one hand and slap it with a big screwdriver handle then hit the reset button. I kept it working until I bought a new drive, but needless to say that one way pretty much junk after all that 'persuasion'. In my case the head was sticking and a few 'wapps' would knock it loose. Oh, the good old days....

Check your BIOS and look for Boot Sequence. Make sure it's set for that drive as the first boot device or the device to boot after the CDROM. I suppose that can cause it too. But that doesn't explain why it resets after the welcome screen..... My $$ is on the drive being bad.

Want me to wapp'it a few times with a screwdriver handle?

Good luck.

[Squid_uk]

Scorpion King i think at this time a slegde hammer sounds more appealing!

[Squid_uk]

Just realised somethin that might help!

I cant watch say quicktime trailers on the apple site without the system reset however i recently bought a Kodak digi cam and that records movie in .mov if i use the Kodak easyshare software i can watch the vids !

[Scorpion King]

I'd say all those flags are there because XP can't load the drivers from the hdd, but that is just a guess. lol

You could run CHKDSK on the drive. To do that get to the desktop and the Start button then click RUN then type in CHKDSK then OK. You can also do it in Windows Explorer by right clicking on the drive letter - choose properties - Tools - then Error Checking. Windows might want to 'do that on next boot' tell it ok, then reboot.

This might tell you something.

Good luck.

[Squid_uk]

i'll give it a go and let you know what happens

[Squid_uk]

Right when using Windows Explorer and trying Error checking it starts PHase 1 the bars fills then i get 'Windows was unable to complete the disk check'.

What do i need to type for the CHDSK because when i type it in 'run' this appears

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d152/Squid_uk/chkdsk.jpg

gets to 100% an disappears

[Scorpion King]

Ok, the CHKDSK command works and completes. That is a plus.

Now try the CHKDSK /f command. Do the Start - Run - then type in the command - space - /F . This tells CHDKSK program to 'fix' any errors it finds. This is where XP will probably what to reboot to do the job so let it. If that completes then its another plus.....++++

(did you check the BIOS - Boot Sequence to make sure your hdd was the first boot device or even the first after the CDROM?)

[Squid_uk]

right bad news (i think) i tried CHKDSK /f and you were right XP did want to restart so i did windows started and the XP logo came up with the bar underneth, then the screen went black nothing came up on the screen but there was hard drive acivity cause i could hear it and the light was flashing, this continued for about 5mins then the systems reset (still nothin appeared on the screen) when it restrted the log on screen appeared went to click my name and.....nothing it seem to have frozen so turn off and on again had to go through the whole black screen again and reset blah blah blah then the log on screen again this time i could click my name so i did desktop appeared and....it reset after bout 15secs,

Now whenever turning the system on i get the same problem as above! I think im gonna cry!

[Scorpion King]

It appears the system is unable to run the CHKDSK /f command. That is not good. If the drive were good that command is just a matter of a few minute operation which returns no faults. Yours seems to hit a 'snag' and goes into reset. Bad news indeed. This is not a plus.

My $$ is still on the drive being bad.

Have you checked the drive cable connectors, power lead connection, etc. Raise the hood and look the cable over. You might get lucky and find a loose wire.... but probably not.

Try a replacement drive if you have one. Come over, i'll load you one of mine. lol

Good luck.

[Nelson37]

Are you set to boot from the CD? Do you get disk boot failure with no CD and no floppy in the drive? What exactly do you see if the XP disk is in the CD drive at boot time?

Confirm that XP loads to the login screen EVERY time, and only fails if logon is immediate, or nearly so? And it fails EVERY time in this scenario? Also, if you wait 5 minutes or so to logon, the PC does NOT reset, and this is the case EVERY time?

This would sound like an issue with hardware failing when cold, and taking an unusually long time to warm up and function. The issues with QT files and the drivers missing may be related to corruption on a failing drive, or may be totally unrelated. Ignore the QT issue for now, and install the necessary device drivers, should have come with your motherboard.

Try entering BIOS setup after power on, sitting there for 5 minutes, no disk in the cd, then boot to windows. If the HD is taking time to spin up to correct speed, this should isolate that issue. This is fairly common but is not a good sign for the long-term health of the drive. Though I have had a drive that worked in this way for over two years, and still worked after being out of use for over a year. SFAIK, it still works now, it will just fail to boot almost every time until reset at least once.

Who did the original install, can you confirm that the yellow-flagged devices were correctly installed at ANY time? If not, the entire installation and build becomes questionable. You could simply have completely screwed-up device drivers, correcting this could be the only problem needing solved. I would do this ASAP.

[Squid_uk]

Nelson the boot order is set as follows: 1st removable, 2nd CD-ROM, 3rd Hard disk, 4th DISABLED.

Yes i get the boot failure when i have nothing i the CD drives (i have no floppy drive), if i leave the XP disk in the drive the system will load and the prompt 'Press any key to boot from CD' but i just leave it loads the windows log on within 10secs of the prompt appearing.

XP will load to the log on screen everytime if the XP disk is in the drive and yes log on will fail if done immediatly and will fail everytime, regards to you saying about 'warming up' if the system has been left on anything from 5mins - 5hrs it will still restart if log on is attepmted straight away.

Also regards to the set i bought the system from a company called 'Demonite' who apparently went bust (which makes thing all the more better for me!) Im not 100% sure if the problem with the restetting started before or after i accidently wiped my hard drive but i know that the disk boot failure started before the wipe, the reason it was wiped was because i tried to fix the problem buy reinstalling windows and accidently deleted the partition

[Nelson37]

Since the disk wipe and re-install, has it EVER booted correctly? Meaning no CD and immediate logon?

Regarding the warm-up - Are you saying that you can boot to the BIOS, without ever starting Windows, leave it for an extended period, exit and logon rapidly, and it fails?

The ONLY time it will boot correctly is when the logon screen is left untouched for several minutes? AND with the XP cd in the drive?

Other than a corrupted install that has never been finished, I can't think of anything that would account for this set of symptoms. Closest thing I have seen was a recent case of a PC that would wait forever, allow typing two and only two characters of the password, and immediately reset. Absolutely bizarre. Re-install fixed this, in your case I would format, delete partitions, and start over from scratch.

The time delay is the wierd part, There should not be any difference software-wise whether you wait or not, excluding viruses and hardware issues.

Partitions - anything like GoBack or any diagnostic partitions, any other partitions at all, on this drive?

[Squid_uk]

No i thas never booted correctly since the re-install,

I have not tried what you said with the bios yet, and yes the only time it boots correctly is if when the logon screen is left untouched for several minutes and with the XP cd in the drive,

And the partitons im not sure about but when i re-installed windows i started from scratch creating a new partition and then i used a recovery software to get my old data back

[Nelson37]

Either the install never finished, or the data recovery gave you some corrupted DLL.

The purpose of letting it sit in the BIOS would be to allow warm-up time with Windows not in the picture. ISOLATE and IDENTIFY.

The fact that it will not boot without the CD in the drive, but with the CD boots not into setup but into Windows, only when combined with a login delay, definitely indicates that something is wrong with the install.

I would backup data, and data ONLY, delete ALL partitions, confirming this with some other software than windows, and start all over again. Install ONLY Windows and drivers and confirm correct boot operation. And I mean confirm, which means reboot several times, let the machine cool thoroughly, boot and reboot some more, run a chkdsk, defrag, and some stress or burn-in tests, a few hours each of some video games or some video encoding would probably do for this. After you have done all that, do it again. Then and only then restore your data, and data only, all programs must be re-installed.

[redwudz]

When I used Ghost the first time to restore my hard drive after the system got corrupted..... I didn't realize I had set it to backup on each shutdown. I managed to load the same completely corrupted copy of the system that I just removed. Now I make the backup copy to DVD and save it in a box.

Being you have a very serious problem, I would agree to back up just your data and do a clean install from the system discs. Don't add any of your backed up data until you have solved the problem.

I didn't notice if it was mentioned, but you might also try running Memtest 86 to check your RAM memory. Bad RAM can cause strange problems at times. If that doesn't solve the problem, then maybe a new hard drive. If you end up purchasing a new hard drive and that's not the problem, you now have two good hard drives. That's not so bad.

[Squid_uk]

Nelson when you say back up data only, what should i not back up?

[Nelson37]

Only that which YOU have created, and is absolutely irreplacable, and is NOT a program file.

The example I use for customers is you have a pot of stew. You just found out that one of the vegetables has salmonella poisoning. How much of that stew you keep, if any, depends on how desperately hungry you are. ANY PIECE, if re-used, could make the new pot bad as well, as you have discovered.

DATA files. Docs, spreadsheets, PST files, the output of a program. Files that YOU named and saved. NO exe, dll, program files, anything that is installed or registered.

If you are not certain, just make sure and do the install and testing as described. AFTER THIS, Put your saved files back in small groups, while repeating the testing. The idea is to make sure the new stew does not make you sick before you start adding anything more to it.

[Squid_uk]

Nelson thanks for helping with this i just hope your hard work will pay off!

I tried leaving on the bios screen for 10mins then log on straight away but same thing happens

[Squid_uk]

Hey guys! Now i know it been over a year since i lasted posted in this topic but i have started suffering from the same problem again!

Now i did sort the problem last time but can't remember what i did exactly, i think i disabled most of the start up programs using MSCONFIG.

Now what happened today was i tried installing a game and it said to check if my graphics drivers were up to date and also my AMD Dual-Core Optimizer was up to date, so i went on the AMD website to download the lastest driver, then installed it reset the PC as requested and......bang.....same problem again!

Now i will try MSCONFIG again but i may not be able to start up again which is why i've posted this now!

What could cause this problem again?!

[Squid_uk]

UPDATE: I disabled all program within the start up
(MSCONFIG) apart from AVG and MSN messenger!