Boots better 2nd time around...

[Joel Schultz]

OK, I think I'll be next in line to tap the vast realm of PC maintenance expertise here...

Machine specs are:

Mobo: Asus ATV133

Chipset: VIA KT133A (w/ driver patch from VIA required for my ATI video card)

CPU: AMD T-bird Athlon 850MHz

Fan: Global Win something or other

RAM: 256 MB 133MHz SDRAM

Video: ATI Radeon 32MB DDR, running Beta driver released in January (needed it to play "Oni", will be updating to recently released version soon)

Sound: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, running Beta driver (had stability issues with box driver)

Joystick: MS Sidewinder Pro (USB config)

Gamepad: Gravis Xterminator (gameport config)

Monitor: 17" CTX don't-remember-model

OS: Win98

HD: 3 hard disks: 2.5 GB unknown vendor, 10GB Maxtor, 30 GB Maxtor

CDROM: Creative Labs 52X

Modem: External US Robotics 56K fax/modem on COM2

Chassis fan: present, runs off of same fat power leads my HD and CDROM use.

PSU: 235 watt

OK, this is my current machine config resulting from an upgrade two months ago. My problems are as follows:

When I booted my machine from a cold startup, it would go through the initial BIOS PCI bus detection phase. All systems would start up.

It would then go to my Windows startup splash screen. Animation flickers for several seconds as usual.

Screen would revert to text to show Santa Cruz driver initialization & other stuff in my autoexec.bat.

Screen blacks out. 1 second pause, a beep, and the computer begins boot process all the way from the beginning again. This time, I get Win98's menu complaining about it failing to start up correctly last time with the 30 second timer for booting into safe mode. I cancel that and tell it to do a normal start.

It would then go to my Windows startup splash screen. Animation flickers for several seconds as usual.

Screen would revert to text to show Santa Cruz driver initialization & other stuff in my autoexec.bat.

Screen switches to my Win98 logon prompt - which it should have done in the first place.

Subsequent reboots do not usually exhibit this behavior.

I recently unplugged my 2.5 GB HD from both power and bus, leaving it physically in place for a lack of a better place to put it (it held a Linux setup I rarely used, and an unrelated upgrade woe made the HD inaccessible for the time being anyway, so no loss). The misbehavor seemed to occur less often afterwords, but still occurs nonetheless.

---

I have a strong suspicion as to the cause of this behavior. But I will withhold this suspicion so as not to "taint" the possible responses. And if the responses agree with my secret suspicion, I'll know I'm not crazy...

In an unrelated (and less important) issue, what would cause a CPU fan to sound like an electric lawn mower? I think I've ruled out wires poking into it (including the fan wiring itself). The only thing I can think of is that the fan is off balance (it's a big fan/heat sink sticking out of a vertically mounted mobo). Sounds nasty during boot, but quiets to near-whisper after about a minute and a half.

[GREG MILLER]

Joel,

I suspect that you look no further than that 235w PS. I am in the process of building a new system, and my box has a 300w PS in it.

If you look at AMD's support pages for PS, you will see that a 250w is need for a basic setup running an Athlon, and 300w for anything over that.

By the looks of your system specs, you are over the basic configuration.

I say drop a 300w PS in and all of your instability problems will go away.

[Parias]

250 watts was barely enough for my new 1.1Ghz system I got awhile back.. even with that, I constantly rebooted at random during heavy gameplay. Upgrading to a 300 watt solved the problem. Somehow I think 235 watts would come up short too

[Joel Schultz]

And my nagging suspicion was indeed that 235W PSU. It worked well on my old Pentium II 450 mobo, so I didn't suspect it at first, but after reading some of the other threads around here I actually thought to look at it...

Looks like I'll have to order a new one soon. Anyone have recommendations on a particular brand, or are they all pretty much the same?

[ 04-26-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ]

[GREG MILLER]

The Compusa in Monroeville has them in stock.

Just make sure you get one that has air flow holes on the bottom of it, so it will help to cool the CPU.

I knew Parias was going to share his wisdom on this subject.

[ 04-26-2001: Message edited by: GREG MILLER ]

[Gallion]

Make sure the PSU is ATX 2.03 and AMD compliant - they run anywhere from $50 to $100 USD. 300w PSU si the minimum wattage IMO and experience. Never hurts to have excess wattage capacity

TTFN

[Guest]

you may also be stuck in a DOS loop.

Rename autoexec.bat to something else and restart, see if it will reboot ok (win dont need autoexec.bat anyway).

[Wolferz]

Joel,

I used to have the same problem with an IBM I had.

Only way I found to cure it was to let it boot into safe mode, run scandisk & defrag, then restart the PC.

Also, check your start-up files in the System Configuration Utility to make sure some errant little program didn't add itself in there.

I always run my machine from a clean boot (Systray and Explorer only), then start any needed programs manually.

Oh, and a 300 W power supply is a really good piece of advice.

[Joel Schultz]

So far so good...

Upgraded to a 300W PSU. Notice that the CPU fan audibly remains at a higher RPM during the boot process, am still noticing a slight audible slowdown, though. Also haven't reconnected one HD still (that old Linux 2.5G I never used). Lawnmower-engine noise from the fan persists, but since it goes away after a minute I guess I have to live with that...

Updated drivers for Sound & Video to latest released versions; no more betas on those guys.

Thus far things seem to have stabilized. If this keeps up another week, will probably try to reconnect the HD. Thanks to all for their help.