PC failing to boot, strange sequence...

[Rocky]

Here's a new one... on my desktop...

Boot froze at Windows 7 "Welcome" screen.

Forced a restart.

Computer starts, lights on, fans spinning, no HD activity.

5 seconds later

One quick blue light to show HD activity, then computer restarts

Previous 3 steps repeat, forever! Never seen this type of thing before.

I halt the whole process by holding in the power button. Then switch the unit off at the PSU, wait, turn it back on.

Now it boots, but at post it says "Overclocking failed, F1 Setup or F2 load default values"

Clicked F2 and windows loaded.

I've seen that overclocking message before a long time ago, can't recall the resolution, maybe a new battery required on the mobo?

[Zeealex]

it can't do any harm placing a new CMOS battery in there anyway.

is it an ASUS motherboard by any chance?

[Rocky]

Yeh it is.

[Zeealex]

aah, I read up somewhere that it's a typical "failure to boot" message on ASUS boards, resetting the BIOS to defaults should be sufficient.

[Rocky]

Okay, I need to find why it's not booting then. I always seem to get freeze and boot issues about a year or two into a new install. Grrr.

[Halli~SPARTA~]

I have had issues like that with my system and the only recourse was to turn off hibernate and ect.

I still use screen power mode but if I use CPU power save it does something like yours is doing.

[Cpl Ledanek]

my old school solution with Asus mobo:

unplug PSU...press "reset" for 10-15 secs

restart

if fails

unplug PSU...press "reset" for 10-15 secs

remove battery

clear CMOS

replace battery

get into BIOS, load default

if fails...call Dannik

[Rocky]

Oh dear things have gone bad.

Now it won't boot.

NTLDR not found.

[Rocky]

I fixed it in 10 minutes, still concerned though.

I was getting two messages pre-post

Detect Drives Done - No drives found, then

NTLDR not found

Googling the first error led me to check the bios settings, as it is to do with the JMicrom controller. I know for previous build that this should be disable on asus boards unless you are running an array. So I went into the bios and right enough, it was ON for some reason.

This made me think back to my first post where it looked like the BIOS had reset for some reason. This kind of condirms it, BIOS was back to default settings. So I switched the JMicron controller off.

Then I check to see if all the HDs were listed, and they were, but IN THE WRONG BOOT ORDER. How the heck did that happen?

Once I put the in the right order, the machine booted fine.

There is still something unstable about this PC though, it shouldn't have done that for no apparaent reason.

Could the CMOS battery be to blame? Can you check it's charge? I'll get a new one anyway.

[ApexMods]

From the nineties, but still... ;-)

[Rocky]

Hmmm, now I don't have any sound lol, so I can't watch that video.

But, I love my iPad, love my iPhne 3GS, so the next logical step is a mac. One day.

[ApexMods]

Sorry, couldn't help myself, lol. BTW - you should be able to use your iPad or iPhone to watch the clip.

[Rocky]

Haha you are too funny.

I went into BIOS and swicthed off the onboard sound and fixed the sound issue.

Without going OT too much (!), I think the only reasons I have gone for a mac and my lack of understanding on a few points...

1. Is there a good selection of software like a decent WYSIWYG web editor like Dreamweaver for it?

2. It's not a gaming machine is it - I mean, you can't join in all the BF3 fun with thousands of players can you?

I just feel I would be kind of restriced with a Mac, but that may just be down to my ignorance. I'd like to see one running to help me past these concerns.

[RileyFletcher_01]

Some Ghost Recon mods don't function on Macs because of placeable objects set up as mounted machine guns, it is installed using an .exe, or it has the incorrect texture formats. You also can't mod on them but that isn't a problem for you

[ApexMods]

1. Is there a good selection of software like a decent WYSIWYG web editor like Dreamweaver for it?

2. It's not a gaming machine is it - I mean, you can't join in all the BF3 fun with thousands of players can you?

1. Dreamweaver is available for both PC and Mac, and of course there are many other solutions available.

2. There are plenty of games available for Mac (e.g. have a look at Steam's Mac section), but indeed most titles still come out for PC first or don't get ported at all. This also has to do with the fact that it's so easy to run Windows games (and all other software) on Mac either via virtualisation (Wineskin, VirtualBox, Parallels, VMware Fusion, CrossOver etc.) or by simply installing Windows on a separate partition via Boot Camp. That way you have a fully compatible Windows PC whose hardware just happens to have been built by Apple. My Macs are my most reliable and best performing Windows machines, and my overclocked PC is collecting dust from lack of use.

Some Ghost Recon mods don't function on Macs because of placeable objects set up as mounted machine guns, it is installed using an .exe, or it has the incorrect texture formats. You also can't mod on them but that isn't a problem for you

Since the new Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) does not support legacy apps like Ghost Recon out-of-the-box anymore, I actually run the PC version of GR inside a little Wineskin wrapper (free/open source) on OS X, so that way I can finally play all those PC-only mods on my Mac without booting into that horror of an OS called Windoze. Admittedly I still use Micro$haft's excuse of an OS for some modding tools.

[RileyFletcher_01]

Speaking of which, when is Rocky going to release his first mod?

[CJo1964]

Possibly rocky, but I would do a deep test of your hard disk to see if its not about to fail on you.

Check your manufacturers website for a test program.

I know seagate had one as i used it.

[Zeealex]

yeah i'm beginning to agree with CJo1964, the hard disk might be on it's last leg here.

BUT checking the CMOS battery might be a good idea too, one of my PCs kept showing the wrong time, and the boot order kept resetting, like yours, I gave it another battery and it was fine afterward. might be different in your case, might be better might be worse.

[Rocky]

Guys, this is my new SSD HD!!! It can't be failing alread, it's only bee in less than year!

[ApexMods]

I would advise against running low-level read-write tests or formatting or defragmentation on an SSD, as this seriously degrades its life expectancy (each memory cell of an SSD has limited write cycles). I don't know what's causing your BIOS to mess up, but the SSD would probably be the last thing on my check list. Check the CMOS battery first, and if that isn't the issue maybe consider (re-)flashing the BIOS from a known good source.

[Halli~SPARTA~]

Rocky, My system shows the very same at boot up (no hard drive found) but still boots up and as stated above I quit using sleep-hibernate and now no problems.

[Cpl Ledanek]

When you reset the BIOS to default, it looked for the VERY first HD you installed the OS

This happened to me a few times.... I posted this here too.

Try to work with ONE HD ...then try to resolve your problem

try the CMOS + new battery first

[ROCO*AFZ*]

As stated, try each hdd by itself.

Is there a beep code?

pull 1 stick of ram at a time, test.

Asus bios will reset itselft if you fail to boot to many times in a row, hence the option to reset it to defaults. It's their failsafe as overclocking could lead you to an unbootable state without it. (only remedied by pulling the battery)

Mac isn't a solution. Hardware can fail on them also. This is a hardware problem

Also Mac's only support certain video cards (i've never seen extra power connectors nor powersupplies that can handle gaming cards although it's been a while) That is the reason one of AFZ built a gaming pc. he was running bootcamp but could only play graw on the lowest settings. If your gonna get a mac, might as well get an xbox to game on instead

Recently i had an Asus board bite the dust after 5 years of gaming. Cost me 150.00 for a new evga one (next chipset up) online and i didn't have to reload any drivers!

[Rocky]

Asus bios will reset itselft if you fail to boot to many times in a row, hence the option to reset it to defaults. It's their failsafe as overclocking could lead you to an unbootable state without it. (only remedied by pulling the battery)

I did not know that, interesting!

I am actually thinking about saving myself the grief of troubleshooting these issues as my PC is now several generations behind the current processors and GPU's.

Thinking about getting one of these mobo/processor/RAM bundles I spotted the other day. Sounds like a good idea and a quick easy build.

[CR6]

Hmmm, now I don't have any sound lol, so I can't watch that video.

But, I love my iPad, love my iPhne 3GS, so the next logical step is a mac. One day.

I am definitely impressed with Apple's iDevice lineup these days (especially the ones running iOS), but I agree with Roco that Macs are not for serious gamers. Although there are a handful of game companies that will release Mac versions right out of the gate with PC versions (Blizzard comes to mind), that is generally the exception.

I have traded in my previous MacBook Pro for a MacBook Air as I did not do any serious computing on it, and the MacBook Air is just lighter and works great for surfing, watching streaming video, backing up my iPhone, organizing my iTunes collection, etc. However, I do not want to bother repurchasing all my PC apps for the Mac, including things like Office etc, so I still do the majority of my computer work on Windows.

In the end, I definitely understand why people would want to buy in to the whole Apple ecosystem, but you do pay a bit of a premium for it. I guess it depends what you are used to (I definitely can get around Windows much easier than Mac OS) and what you are willing to pay for.