Strange start-up

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 6:44 pm

I have win xp pro. Twice now in 2 days when I turned the comp. on all that came on was a black screen. Hit the warm re-boot button and it boots to start-up screen that says a problem in shut down yada yada. I hit "start normally" and everything is fine.
Shut down prior to both occurances was normal and complete.

Any ideas?

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 7:02 pm

Stand by...I'm running NAV and so far 2 virii.

suicide eddie · Post by **suicide eddie** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 2:33 pm

does the hd start to power up and then stop?, could be the mb has done its health checks and maybe stopped at the cpu check, double check the seating of all cards/mem etc and especially cpu fan plug and heatsink mounting. its worth checking the cmos bat and that the bios is healthy as well.

Xamindar · Post by **Xamindar** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 2:44 pm

Do you have 2 video cards installed (ie. an onboard card and say a gforce aswell in an agp slot)?

But if you found virii then that's probably it.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 5:32 pm

Virii not the problem as it has locked twice since I removed them. Seems like it will start correctly 2 or 3 times and then lock up. I'll try checking that the components are seated firmly. Oh, and only one vid card in the agp slot.

Xamindar · Post by **Xamindar** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 6:15 pm

try running "msconfig" from the run thingy and on the last tab, disable all (or most) startup programs.

Top Gun · Post by **Top Gun** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 9:51 pm

xamindar wrote:try running "msconfig" from the run thingy and on the last tab, disable all (or most) startup programs.

WARNING! Do NOT disable every item listed under msconfig. A few of these startup items are essential Windows components. I'm no expert, but I would suggest checking out a "tweaks" website to see what you need to leave running.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:08 pm

Top Gun wrote:
xamindar wrote:try running "msconfig" from the run thingy and on the last tab, disable all (or most) startup programs.
WARNING! Do NOT disable every item listed under msconfig. A few of these startup items are essential Windows components. I'm no expert, but I would suggest checking out a "tweaks" website to see what you need to leave running.

Actually, windows XP doesn't list those under the startup tab. As long as he doesn't try mucking with the services tab using msconfig, he'll be fine.

Note: If you break something doing this, its just a simple matter of booting into safe mode and just setting it back to normal startup mode. That will undo all your changes.

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 10:12 pm

Look Here.

he has some basic good stuff.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:55 pm

Also, what are the hardware specs of the machine? And have you recently flashed your mobo or vid bios?

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 5:28 pm

Avder wrote:Also, what are the hardware specs of the machine? And have you recently flashed your mobo or vid bios?

Only thing I did was update the ATI drivers. Hmmmm...you don't think this would have anything to do with the problem?

Since I started watching the boot up sequence nothing has gone wrong.

Avder · Post by **Avder** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 7:25 pm

Driver updates can do bizzare things.

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 6:03 pm

O.K., I finally got to see what was going on. Both boot screen comes and then when start-up should go to the black win xp start-up screen...nothing comes up.
I did notice the boot up screens are very faint.
When I do a warm re-boot, the screens are bright and then of course I go to the "Start Normally" screen and everything then finishes normally.
Any clues?