Bootup Issues on Windows XP

[joshriddle577]

Recently I started having a problem with my old computer. What it would do is just out of the middle of nowhere, no matter what I am doing, just go straight to the blue screen error, and restart itself. I was thinking about it and I thought that it might be an overheating problem, so I cleaned all the dust out of the case, and when I turn it on, it makes this loud continuous noise, and some green light that looked like it was coming in from the slot where you insert floppy disks, came on. I realized the CPU fan went out, since it was also making strange noises. So I go ahead and replace it, and I had a bit of trouble getting the thing to start up again, it would restart while starting up, but it stopped doing that and decided to work.

The next day, I was wondering about a problem I was having with sleep mode. You should be able to tap on one of the keys or move the mouse and it come to the unlock screen. But no matter how hard I try, it never wants to come back on, and I end up reestarting the computer. So next I enable hiberation and use that as an alternative.

Next thing that comes to mind is that you can press the power button once to recover from sleep mode. Tried that. However it would come on, but get to this one boot screen, and just sit there, do nothing. So a few times I tried to restart it again. One time it says a driver is missing or corrupt, and press "r" to repair upon seeing the first boot screen. I waited to do that one, because I didn't know what it was going to do. Next it says that it couldn't start successfully, and wanted me to start in safe mode. At the same time the screen told me to start windows normally if I didn't know what happened, which I didn't so I selected that option. It got past the starting windows screen, and then once it displayed the logon screen, it restarted itself. Then it finally worked, and came on.

Today I was playing SC4, and wanted to take a picture. I hit print sceen, and returned to the desktop. Or at least tried to. For one the taskbar wouldn't show up. And it should have in a few seconds. It sat there for 5 minutes and nothing happened. I was stuck there. So I decided to do a reboot, and when it came on, it said that the system has recovered from a serious error. Half the time I am getting those every time the computer comes back on. Then it displays correctly.

Also every time I press the power button, the CPU fan makes this very loud noise, that to be honest, vibrates the entire computer, and then I get the whirring sound.

Looking at the Event Viewer MMC, I have been recently been coming across these errors and warnings that repeatitively keep showing up in the Event Viewer, such as this W32Time one:
Event Type:   Warning
Event Source:   W32Time
Event Category:   None
Event ID:   36
Date:      8/24/2010
Time:      3:13:13 AM
User:      N/A
Computer:   JOSH
Description:
The time service has not been able to synchronize the system time for 49152 seconds because none of the time providers has been able to provide a usable time stamp. The system clock is unsynchronized.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Also a few days ago I noticed a SideBySide, which I never got since I reinstalled the OS about a few months ago.'

I also came across a situation where the computer was running all night long, I wasn't using it though. I get up the next day to use it and the theme has suddenly changed to the Windows classic one. And The XP theme is no longer on the list of themes in Control Panel. Also even though I did have the USB speakers plugged in, it said that they weren't. Rebooting fixed that.

As of right now, the computer seems to be running fine. It doesn't do this all the time, but it has done it a few times.

My OS specs are:
Windows XP Pro SP3
AMD Athlon XP 1665 Mhz CPU
Nvidia GeForce 8400 Gs GPU
WD 320 GB PATA hard disk.

I was wondering if there is any way short of reinstalling the OS or getting new components to solve this problem? Thank you in advance.

Sorry for the long post, I wanted to put as much details in there as I could.

[Lowkee33]

I am not too fancy with computers, but it could be a heat sync problem.  You either need to get the proper drivers for your new fan, or upgrade/re-install your bios.

In my experience standy/hibernate is terrible and it is the first thing I make sure will not happen when I re-install windows.

Sometimes alt-tab ignores us.  How many times did you try it?  Did the game freeze or did you just restart?  A hard restart can also cause problems when your graphics card is trying to switch resolutions.

SC4 does not seems to be the culprit here. 

[tamorr]

You could check your hard drive for errors. There are programs out there. I use Iolo system Mechanic, and it has help extend the life of my computer to some degree. Since mine is a 2000 model and obviously older than yours.


also what you could check also if there is a bad RAM slot, as mine has had one for a bit now. Didn't figure that out or rather it finally gave several months ago. So now I'm stuck with only 2 slots instead of 3.

Just some ideas... Not sure what is going on, but I've had similar problems to that. Not quite the same since I refuse to use Hibernate and Standby... Those are totally useless when I turn my monitor off manually when I leave the room... That and I could never get out of those modes.

I the Turn on button I only use to power down with, nothing else. Works better as such in my opinion.

It could be any number of things, I do not know much of programming or indepth of the computer inside, but I do know enough to keep my own computer running.

[joshriddle577]

I am not too fancy with computers, but it could be a heat sync problem.  You either need to get the proper drivers for your new fan, or upgrade/re-install your bios.

There are drivers for fans? Wow.

also what you could check also if there is a bad RAM slot, as mine has had one for a bit now. Didn't figure that out or rather it finally gave several months ago. So now I'm stuck with only 2 slots instead of 3.

Where are the RAM slots? I suppose on the mobo. Mine was store bought (not walmart type) and I don't know where the RAM slots are at.

I am going to disable hibernation. Also I am going to go ahead and run Chkdsk. (Check Disk I think)

I use a registry repairing software (Registry Mechanic). I wonder if the daily cleaning might have squashed something.

thank you for your help!

[cody426]

There are drivers for fans? Wow.

No there is not, you can update BIOS and Firmware but I highly doubt that is the problem with your machine.

That event ID error 36 is nothing to worry about.

RAM is a good suggestion; it could be the slot or the stick of ram itself.  If there are two sticks try removing one, testing it for a few hours and if problems occur swap with the other and repeat testing.  You can test the different slots by moving the ram module into each one and testing.  I would Google your computer/motherboard model for a picture that would point you to the ram location.  I would also record the location of each module and what slot it was in, not all motherboards can have modules in any old slot.

I would suggest that you have a piece of third party software that is malfunctioning and causing the computer to lock up/become unresponsive.  If you are familiar with MSCONFIG I would start disabling things from the Startup tab that are unneeded.  Like that SidebySide you mentioned, probably something that was installed that you never use. (I think sidebyside is a logitech program but I'm not positive)

[Andreas]

It's not easy to make proper remote diagnosis, but I'll give it a try. The lound noise that came from the floppy drive during the boot sequence is caused by a setting called "Floppy Seek" in the BIOS. Also, modern CPU fans are usually temperature-controlled by the BIOS (they have tree cables that run to the connector on the mainboard instead of just two), and if you don't activate the temperature control feature, they will run at full speed, causing more noise than usual. It might be possible that they spin up while booting and lower speed only a few seconds after that, though. (BTW, no, there is no "fan driver", the fan is controlled either by a temperature sensor or by an energy saving scheme in Windows).

If all those noises appeared suddenly, and you never heard them before, it could be possible that your BIOS was reset to factory defaults somehow. Usually, this happens when the BIOS battery on the mainboard is empty. It's a typical problem for computers that are a couple of years old already, so simply replace the battery, set up all BIOS settings again, and you should be fine. In your case, disable Floppy Seek, activate the CPU Fan Control (for ASUS boards, it's called "Q-Fan"). I don't know if your problem is battery-related, but since the Windows Event Viewer showed problems with time sync, it might be related.

If you can't wake up the PC with a keystroke or mouse movement any longer, those features might have been disabled in the BIOS as well. Wrong BIOS settings can also be responsible for bluescreens, i. e. if the PC had custom memory speed settings. Usually, everything should run fine in "Auto" mode, but depending on the manufacturer, probably cheap memory was used, and the speed settings were lowered a bit to ensure a stable system. The RAM slots should be easy to find, open the case and have a look at the mainboard. If you have a tower, you can usually open the left side, and the RAM slots should be located in the upper right corner of the mainboard (when looking from the left side), near the floppy and DVD drive.

Checking the RAM can be done with the program "MemTest"; download a floppy or CD image and start the PC with it, then run the test. If you have more than one RAM module, remove one of them if you get errors after a thorough check (let it run for at least half an hour or so, so all test cycles are completed), and then the other module for running another test; maybe just one module went bad, while the other runs fine. In this case, try to run the PC with the good module only for a while and see if there are still random crashes and bluescreens.

[joshriddle577]

I suspected there was no "fan driver".  The fan is controlled by Windows.

I always thought that CPU fans on desktops were supposed to maintain a single speed unlike lappys. 

I did run Chkdsk manually from the Local Disk C>Properties>Tools>Check now, path. I didn't set it to repair the errors.

I know you can make changes to the BIOS by pressing F1 at the first boot screen, is that the path to disable the Floppy Seek, and the temp-controlled fan?

Some of the issues began after installing NET 1.0. Also I wanted to install another version, and another version, and another version of NET so that I could run these useless programs that I ended up getting rid of by the end of the day. I think out of them all I only kept 1 of 4 of them. It left some stuff on the computer, after uninstalling the trash that I didn't find useful.

Also regarding the cheap RAM, almost everything in the computer is cheap. Got it when Windows XP first came out. Old age could also be it.

Forgot to add, the heat sink is somewhat smaller than the old one.

I am somewhat unsure how to work that Phoenix AwardBIOS CMOS. The only times we went there was when people more tech-savvy then me were fixing stuff.

Thanks so far everyone.

[null45]

The Floppy (and / or CD-ROM) drive(s) are usually read on start-up to look for disks to boot from.

The temperature control on the fan would slow the fan down when it does not need to run at full power to reduce noise.

As for the Blue Screen Microsoft does have a tool used to find the possible culprits in the crash-dump file located here, but that tool is not very user friendly.  

[joshriddle577]

I noticed now that the fan in the back of the case sometimes won't come on. So I am going to have replace that one too.