Shoutbox

maybe u should try to swap those two cards between the 'main' and 'second' computers, and check if the problems will be exchanged too or not.... if the thing gets serious and annoying, try swapping hard disks, so that u can make sure if its the hard disk or someother faulty hardware....

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Originally posted by zaidgs
maybe u should try to swap those two cards between the 'main' and 'second' computers, and check if the problems will be exchanged too or not.... if the thing gets serious and annoying, try swapping hard disks, so that u can make sure if its the hard disk or someother faulty hardware....

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Can't exchange ethernetcards as the modem is only connected to main comp with ethernetcard, my second computer gets its internetconnection through Wireless USB (they are also not in a network, the only thing shared is internetconnection through the modem itself). I also don't think its my harddisk as chkdsk /r already said that theres no problem there (as fast as i could read it said no bad sectors...then it dissapeared and reappeared saying the volume is not damaged).

Both comps are completely different, main is 2.4 Ghz Intel Celeron on Win XP Pro SP2 with 512 MB DDRAM and the second one is a 500 Mhz P3 on Windows ME with 384 MB SDRAM.

I just hope that tomorrow it will boot up fine again...

Edit: wow, i seem to be in luck today..it booted up just fine

*bump*

The problem has reared up its ugly head again

I found out that it doesn't matter what i do (AV Scan, defrag, chkdsk), but that i need to do something before my comp can boot up Windows normally. The problem is only there when i first start up my computer (in the morning), once it is able to start up normally all's fine (reboot doesn't have those probs).

So it seems like something needs to warm up, but what (processor)? Anyone ever came across the same problem?

This problem occurs every day now, i fear my comp might not start up at all soon.

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Originally posted by Sunshine
So it seems like something needs to warm up, but what (processor)?

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The processor warms up, but it can run healthily at extremely cold temperatures (dry ice cold).

The capacitors on the computer store a bit of charge even once the computer is turned off, so if it was just turned off, turning on the computer is different from leaving it a day since it was turned off. I don't know whether it is relevant here <-- hope that makes sense
I remember someone posting about the residual charge somewhere it was relevant, but I can't remember what it was.

From the effects, I can't tell what part of the computer is causing problems. I guessed it might have been the RAM but you daid you swapped that. I'd take it to a computer shop and ask them to test everything, because it is most likely hardware related.

Buy a pack of blank DVDs and start backing up furiously just incase it dies completely.

This happend to me once when i deleted a regestry file accidently lol, do you remember deleteing anything you didnt know of?

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Originally posted by rav0
The processor warms up, but it can run healthily at extremely cold temperatures (dry ice cold).

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That's what i thought too, but this problem is really doing my head in so i'm not excluding anything.

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The capacitors on the computer store a bit of charge even once the computer is turned off, so if it was just turned off, turning on the computer is different from leaving it a day since it was turned off. I don't know whether it is relevant here <-- hope that makes sense
I remember someone posting about the residual charge somewhere it was relevant, but I can't remember what it was.

From the effects, I can't tell what part of the computer is causing problems. I guessed it might have been the RAM but you daid you swapped that. I'd take it to a computer shop and ask them to test everything, because it is most likely hardware related.

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I ran a memorytest wich showed nothing. I have not replaced nor swapped the RAM after talking to some ppl askin if RAM gets read in a certain sequence...like f.e. first what's in slot 1, then slot 2...

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Buy a pack of blank DVDs and start backing up furiously just incase it dies completely.

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Luckily most of my stuff is on the secondary harddrive. All i have on C: is Windows and installed programs. Documents, installationfiles etc. are all on the second harddisk.

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Originally posted by evil_panda
This happend to me once when i deleted a regestry file accidently lol, do you remember deleteing anything you didnt know of?

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Not that i know of, i only delete registrykeys if i'm absolutely sure they are not needed anymore. It would also not explain why at the beginning the problem occured like once every two weeks then every few days and now daily.

My thoughts still go towards the RAM, but i can't possibly go buy some ram sticks just for the purpose of testing. That's why i'd like to know for sure what is causing all this.

If possible, try to replace your PSU (using the one from the other PC maybe?) and see if it isn't that which is causing the troubles (although it is a remote possebility, it still is a possebility as a cold boot requires far more power than a warm boot). Dunno if this will solve the problem though, even if this was the cause, as parts of Windows (registry) might have been damaged in the process of booting up/manually turning of/etc.

(A simple 300-400W PSU doesn't cost that much, €25 at the most. A lot cheaper than to buy some RAM -just for testing purposes-)


Note: Chkdsk isn't the best thing to check your HDD; it is the quickest, but certainly not the best. It doesn't perform decent tests and often doesn't reconize "unhealthy" sectors. In fact, it can even cause bad sectors on a not so healthy systems in some situations. If you truely wanna scan your HDD for errors, use a 3rd party HDD scantool (eg: Symantec's).

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Originally posted by Sunshine
This sounds like the same problem i had a few weeks ago. Only then i had done a sysrestore wich failed, in the end i couldn't do anything anymore and got the message: Could not find system.sav, or system.sav corrupted. I took it to repairshop and they formatted C: and built in an extra cooler, it's still not clear what caused all this.

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system.sav is a backup copy of the registry system hive file as it looked at the end of the text-mode setup of windows.

After the text-mode setup of Windows has completed (and you switch to the graphics-mode setup), the current basic registry hives are copied to .sav files.

This is used to restore the registry in case of corruption in graphics mode so a basic set of registry keys is present.


The keys present in system.sav are HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System and HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG.

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Originally posted by rav0
Buy a pack of blank DVDs and start backing up furiously just incase it dies completely.

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She can connect the HDD to another PC and access it like that. You don't need to backup everything.

An OS not booting up doesn't mean you lost your data. The data is still there, only the OS you used to access that data can't be started. So simply use another OS (aka another PC) to access it.

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Originally posted by Sunshine

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The capacitors on the computer store a bit of charge even once the computer is turned off, so if it was just turned off, turning on the computer is different from leaving it a day since it was turned off. I don't know whether it is relevant here <-- hope that makes sense
I remember someone posting about the residual charge somewhere it was relevant, but I can't remember what it was.

From the effects, I can't tell what part of the computer is causing problems. I guessed it might have been the RAM but you daid you swapped that. I'd take it to a computer shop and ask them to test everything, because it is most likely hardware related.

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I ran a memorytest wich showed nothing. I have not replaced nor swapped the RAM after talking to some ppl askin if RAM gets read in a certain sequence...like f.e. first what's in slot 1, then slot 2...

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I think you should try with just one stick of RAM, and then the other incase one is faulty.

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Originally posted by Sunshine
My thoughts still go towards the RAM, but i can't possibly go buy some ram sticks just for the purpose of testing. That's why i'd like to know for sure what is causing all this.

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That's why I recomended going to a computer shop, they would most likely test your PC with some different RAM that they had there.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

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Originally posted by rav0
Buy a pack of blank DVDs and start backing up furiously just incase it dies completely.

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She can connect the HDD to another PC and access it like that. You don't need to backup everything.

An OS not booting up doesn't mean you lost your data. The data is still there, only the OS you used to access that data can't be started. So simply use another OS (aka another PC) to access it.

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I know that, but if Sunshine had her files and OS on the one volume, and the OS ceased to be usable, formatting that volume to erase the existing OS would also erase her files.

The hard disk could still be used from another, working OS, but it would need to be on a computer with space for the hard disk with the dead OS on it, and even if one was found, it is more of a hassle copying files like this than burning the files before the OS died.

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Originally posted by rav0

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

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Originally posted by rav0
Buy a pack of blank DVDs and start backing up furiously just incase it dies completely.

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She can connect the HDD to another PC and access it like that. You don't need to backup everything.

An OS not booting up doesn't mean you lost your data. The data is still there, only the OS you used to access that data can't be started. So simply use another OS (aka another PC) to access it.

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I know that, but if Sunshine had her files and OS on the one volume, and the OS ceased to be usable, formatting that volume to erase the existing OS would also erase her files.

The hard disk could still be used from another, working OS, but it would need to be on a computer with space for the hard disk with the dead OS on it, and even if one was found, it is more of a hassle copying files like this than burning the files before the OS died.

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Connecting the HDD to another PC is far more less hassle then _hoping_ to be able to boot up on the faulty OS, then _hoping_ that your cdrom/dvd drive works (and its drivers) and then _hoping_ that there aren't any errors while you are writing the dvd/cd...

When you connect the HDD to another PC, all you need to do is drag & drop your files, nothing more...

Also, in most cases, people don't have all 4 IDE ports used up. And even then, simple disconnect an existing HDD or cdrom or whatever. Realy, connecting a HDD to another PC is as easy as 123. Far more easier, safer and much quicker than hoping and praying and sweating while you try to kick start the faulty OS and the big chance that your backup isn't written correctly anyways...

As for the formatting part; She doesn't need to format her HDD for this. Even then, if she did she also couldn't make a backup like you suggest either...

Of course, for backing up data on a healthy system, writing data directly to a dvd/cd is best; you don't need to swap your HDD then. But in this case the OS isn't healthy anymore and Sunshine does have a second PC she can use. In that situation swapping HDD's is the quickest and safest way to backup..

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
and Sunshine does have a second PC she can use. In that situation swapping HDD's is the quickest and safest way to backup..

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Installing/connecting a second HD indeed isn't such a biggie. Remains one problem if i was to do that. All HDDs in this PC are completely NTFS and the second computer i could use runs on WinME, so it won't recognize NTFS disks (blah i regret setting the first partition on my second HD to NTFS instead of Fat32 now). There's also no way i could get WinXP to run on my second computer as it doesn't meet the specs...

But rest assured there's nothing on C: that really needs backing up, only the OS and installed programs are on there..my documents, music and installationfiles are safely on another HDD. The only downside to formatting is that i need to reinstall all my programs (and drivers) from scratch, wich takes many hours. Also i don't think reformatting will solve it as this has been done recently already and the problem came back without me doing anything to cause it.

Update on the matter:
This morning i had the idea to try and boot up Windows without the second HD connected (it's in a rack so it's easy to remove), it booted up just fine. Then i reconnected the second HD whilst the comp was still "cold", rebooted and it hung again. I downloaded a diagnostic tool from the Maxtor site (both my HDs are Maxtor) and ran a couple tests (the basic ones), it passed the installation test and the quick test. Not done the advanced test yet (wich will scan for bad sectors). As the rack has a diskcooler built in i wanna test if disabling this will solve the problem..if it does i suspect that this lil extra is asking just a little bit too much from my PSU. Remains the question why was it working fine before? Is my PSU slowly dying? Does having the second HD connected adress the memory in such a way that it won't work with 256Mb RAM (if one stick is faulty i got 256 of 512 left)? If my RAM is to blame why does it still say i got 512 when i go to system?

More testing to be done tomorrow as i can only do this when the computer is still cold (there's no problems when it's not).