Strange Startup Problem

[Piyono]

A few days ago my main machine started playing a new game:
After a cold start the boot process moves at about half-speed. The welcome beep, the different POST screens, everything occurs slower. The Windows XP splash logo fade-in is choppy, and as a grand finale, just as the outline of the login dialog box appears (I've disabled fast user switching and the welcome screen) the monitor suddenly displays 'no input signal' as though the restart button was pressed, but the machine stays on, requiring an actual restart or cold boot.

This can happen several times before the machine finally boots.

First thing I did was yank my modem and non-system drives and try again. No change. I tested my system drive using Spinrite 6 but it displays no errors. Memtest86 show no errors, either, although I have yet to test the RAM one stick at a time.

Any ideas?


Piyono

 

[P5-133XL]

First, the slowness of the power-on process indicates that perhaps your CPU speed has defaulted to a non-standard value. This can happen on some motherboards when they, for some reason, decide that the CPU was overclocked to the point of instability and then it resets the multiplier and/or clock frequency. My first reaction is to reset the CMOS to default/optimum values.

The next symptom is that Windows locks up at the start, and requires multiple trys before success. That may be a motherboard, power supply, or RAM. Not typically a HD problem or software.

Combining them would seem to indicate motherboard, power supply, and RAM in that order. I can't exclude that the video card (I am assuming a video card and not onboard video) is the problem though. If the machine does not crash during 3d video game play then I would exclude the video card and the power supply in that that activity tends to stress those components more during play then during startup. RAM problems tend to show up as generalized crashes or otherwise bizarre behavior but not typically just during bootup.

That would be my thinking, at least at this point with the information given.

 

[paugie]

I was thinking motherboard, too.
maybe a giveaway would be bloated caps on the motherboard?

 

[Piyono]

I did a quick scan of the caps. All seems well.
My power supply is a PCP&C model. They tend to outlive the rest of the components in my machines so I'm leaning towards RAM and mobo as the likely culprits.

 

[Piyono]

In a bout of mild desperation I took my computer apart, removed all the cards and cables from the motherboard, including the RAM, used compressed air to get dust out of all the nooks and crannies, used an eraser to clean the connector edges of cards and DIMMs and then put it all back together.

It booted up smoothly on the first try. And the second. Third, too. Windows logo fade-in is still a bit jumpy, but at this point I'm counting my blessings.

A speck of dust. A spot of corrosion. Looks like a little too much resistance here and a little too much capacitance there there is all it takes to send those delicate ones and zeroes astray.

Never underestimate the power of regular hygiene!

 

[Piyono]

Oh, just for the record, this is a Gigabyte model with solid caps. They don't leak, do they?

Piyono

 

[MaxBurn]

Not sure on the cap issue, I just think they last longer but have no idea how much longer. Did stumble across this site recently though: http://www.badcaps.net/.

I can't tell you how much stuff I have fixed by taking it all apart, minor cleanup and putting it back together after really finding nothing. Motorcycles, clocks and computers etc.

 

[Piyono]

I've used badcaps.net in the past. Good site.