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Problem with homebrew computer [splash screen] [power button]

admin — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:50:11 +0000

Q: Im building my first computer, and Ive run into some problems getting it to boot. I have the parts stripped down to just the motherboard, video card and one stick of ram. When I press the power button, the fans spin up, but thats the only thing consistently happens. Sometimes, I get the post screen and the computer will restart. Sometimes it will freeze the Asus splash screen. Sometimes I get to the post screen and then the monitor is in DPMS mode shift. If I reset the RTC RAM, I sometimes go to the BIOS setup screen on the later start, but Im never able to set up the screen afterwards to reach. And, sometimes, nothing will happen. The NumLock key on my keyboard always works, however, even if the monitor has gone in DPMS mode. The fans on the computer may turn off the monitor when the DPMS mode message flashes, sometimes they keep going.

I with the motherboard and tried to connect from outside, but the cables are too short. Nevertheless, I have all the spacers to ensure that the board was not touching the case and I installed the motherboard card. Ive tried to stick in each slot, and that does not seem to make a difference. Ive checked all my connections very carefully. I have ensured that the processor is good seated.

My motherboard is an Asus P5WD2 Premium, the video card is a BFG Geforce 6600 GTOC (it does not have a connector for extra power), the processor is a Pentium 660, and the power is a 430 watt Antec Neo HE.

One strange is that I never hear beeps when the computer starts, even if they do make it to the post screen. I am sure the speakers are plugged properly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best Answer: upgrade the power supply for one and then check the video card as it is locking up when graphics are running. this is a problem when you put the machine under load. try removing the case cover and running the machine without the case to see if it is a overheating problem also. are the fans on the cpu and case clean?

Re:Could it be overheating?

Re:You can take the PS out of the case if those are the cables that are too short. The front connectors you don't need right now, just momentarily short across the two power pins to start / shutdown. A phillips screwdriver works great.

I think you've got a bad board though.

Re:Hmm – shouldn't need to plug in the ez-plug if you have a PS with a 20-pin and 4-pin connector.

Re:Yes, I've plugged in the EZ Plug, the four pin plug, and the twenty four pin plug.

Re:Here's a pic of the board: link (http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/fullimage.php?image=9493). In that pic, the four-pin power fitting at the middle of the bottom edge… got that one hooked up?

Also, at the upper-left corner is the four-pin ATX12V receptacle. That one's hooked up too, correct? It's in an easy-to-miss location up there

I cannot boot in Safe Mode, WXP Home [repair options] [splash screen]

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:18:41 +0000

Q: Ok my computer will not boot into Windows . If I choose starts normally and / or last known good configuration, it endlessly on the WXP Home splash screen and the scroll bar keeps running indefnintely.

If I choose safe mode, either directly again at some point, or freezes at the same point (the last file loaded mup.sys) I try

If WXP setup the system to automatically restart before I get any recovery or repair options.

Im running an Epox motherboard AMD, AMD 2100 +, and a SATA HDD

I shift to other 3 ram sticks and thats not the problem . This makes me think motherboard, but I thought I would get advice before I buy another mobo. I have the bios payment problems, and unplug everything except the ram, cpu, keyboard, HDD.

going crazy here because I can usually figure this stuff out. Ive read a few posts on google, but none of them fit my description

Re:I came here looking for just this very issue. My bootup would hang on the same file. Was it just coincidence that it stopped hanging when I ejected my motherboard driver CD?
ePoX 9NPA+Ultra & AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (venice)

Re:You must have some problem, as safe mode shows.

But – did you try to press Alt-Tab when sitting in the splash screen? I had some error during the boot process, and the dialog was hidden by the splash screen. Change process with Alt-Tab, and I saw the dialog, retired it, and had some idea what the problem was (not that I recall now:))

Re:When you said "I've changed everything", did it include the power supply and HDD cables? I've seen a similar problem w/ a bad power supply and also a bad hdd cable.

Re:I also ran into a problem that very closely resembled the one you described. My 'fix' was to remove my hard drive from the 'broken' computer and place it in a working computer (both running XP) as 'D' drive. Now I was able to run through my stable of utilities to try and remedy whatever the problem was. I ran Norton WinDoctor, Spyware Doctor, Norton Anti-virus, Scandisk, deleted all .tmp files, etc., etc..
Then I held my breath and reinstalled the 'fixed' drive back as 'C' drive in the computer it originally came from…and held my breath!
It worked! I could now boot into Windows. Once I accomplished that I ran a System Restore and things have been fine since.
Hope this helps!

guy

Re:Leave it that way. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Re:Ok so I replaced my motherboard, same thing
replaced HDD once with ide, once with SATA, same thing
replaced video card
replaced ram
replaced EVERYTHING…. except my cpu

swapped my cpu from my wifes computer, BAM boots right up….

I put my cpu in hers…. works fine…

WTF is that about

Lets call the bad CPU, CPU A.

If you put A in mobo B or C it will give this same error and not boot up, if you put it in a different motherboard, call it A, it works fine… Weird shte, and Ive checked different bios settings too :-/

Re:Originally posted by: guy
This is one of the most talked about problems over the past year or two. The techical consensus seems to be that it is caused by a BIOS problem – a corrupted ESCD. This can be caused by a virus also. The cure seems to be to reflash the BIOS.

I reflashed with the newest bios, no go

Re:Originally posted by: guy
Is your CPU temperature OK?

Yes it is good.

Re:Is your CPU temperature OK?

I am always wary about flashing the bios ;(..

Now to download the file put it on a floppy disk, and try to flash my bios

Re:I get a similar problem. As soon as it gets to Safe Mode's login screen, the PC restarts.

XP repairs don't help. I installed XP on my other PC recently, and the SAME problem! Maybe it's some BIOS conflict with SP2? Although I didn't try the Safe Mode with out SP2…

Re:This is one of the most talked about problems over the past year or two. The techical consensus seems to be that it is caused by a BIOS problem – a corrupted ESCD. This can be caused by a virus also. The cure seems to be to reflash the BIOS.

Re:Originally posted by: guy
Make sure all your BIOS settings are within spec.

My board defaults to a 204MHz on ram speed. My RAM is SUPER sensitve about frequency. Anything over 200MHz sends stability into the crapper.

If you are booting off the CD and getting hardlocks or reboots, 10-1 hardware setting problem or straight hardware problem.

Yeah I am betting that it is the motherboard…. it happens at the SAME exact point everytime so it is more than just a stability issue… It seems when a set driver is loaded/or feature is attempted to be used, it crashes… both in setup and in safe mode startup

Re:Make sure all your BIOS settings are within spec.

My board defaults to a 204MHz on ram speed. My RAM is SUPER sensitve about frequency. Anything over 200MHz sends stability into the crapper.

If you are booting off the CD and getting hardlocks or reboots, 10-1 hardware setting problem or straight hardware problem.

Re:Originally posted by: guy
last time I saw this error was installing MCE 2k5 off bad media. Try doing a repair from your XP CD.

If I try running WXP setup the system automatically reboots before I get to any recovery or repair options.

Re:last time I saw this error was installing MCE 2k5 off bad media. Try doing a repair from your XP CD.

HELP! Win95 has moderate WinXP on my computer! [splash screen] [winxp]

admin — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:39:38 +0000

Q: Ok, heres the deal. I have a printer that I want to install for a friend who has Win95. For testing purposes, I was setting up Win95 on my computer in a separate partition for WinXP. I have four primary partitions on this disk – the first three are formatted NTFS and FAT I was the last before the creation of Windows 95. I booted off of a disk, and then it was done installing Win95 restarts. The only thing now is to start the Win95 splash screen show, it says “While initializing device IOS: Windows Protection Error. You need to restart your computer.” When I boot from the floppy, but told I install Windows on C:, but I thought it was just to call F: that because it could not read NTFS. The drive was empty, and the right size.

I just want to know if there is a way for me to the master boot record to determine whether anything should be fixed so that I can boot into WinXP him. And getting Win95 works as half either.

Thanks OS would not hurt!

-Midi

Re:If it has USB support, then it is Win95C..How well it supports USB devices I could not tell you. May not support much natively like Win98 on up, but if you have driver disk for the item you are going to install, then you might be in luck.

P.S. I am writing this from a Dell optiplex Pentium 200 MMX machine that I picked up on the cheap that I just installed Win95B on. I too was feeling nostalgic . Or maybe a sucker for punishment…lol

Re:I changed my BIOS FSB setting to 100MHz, and I was able to load 95 even in normal mode (or should I say, "unsafe mode" ). After installing the update, I'm able to load it even at 133MHz FSB. I'm not really sure about memory timings, except that I haven't messed with them. I guess I'm ok though.

Although it's somewhat interesting and nostalgic, as soon as I'm done testing, Win95 is going bye-bye! But it's good to know how to dual boot with Win9x for future reference.

Now, you wouldn't happen to know how to get the USB ports working, would you? It says right on the Windows 95 CD "With USB Support", so it's at least revision B.

Re:Thanks! When I set my motherboard to 100MHz, is there anything else I need to think about, or can I just change that one setting? . No, unless you have RAM timings way fast (try CAS 2.5 or CAS3). You have the same proc as I do and "should be ok" after de-clocking to 1050MHZ. Doing this got me safe mode only, I could not boot into windows normal until after the patch. After installing the k6-2 update, while still in safe mode, I also installed Service pack 1 and some OLE update i also had on disk (you may not need those though). After that, I could start up normal and then load up hardware drivers, install IE 5.5(from CD), get on the 'net, and do Windows update from MS. Good luck. Remember though, If you want to dual-boot…Win9x/ME go on first, then install Win2k/XP.

Re:Thanks! When I set my motherboard to 100MHz, is there anything else I need to think about, or can I just change that one setting?

Really, all I'm trying to do is test a printer under Win95 for a friend! He also has Win95, so that's what I need to test with. The reason I need to test it is that I tried to set it up there, and the software said it had to have Windows 98, but for some reason, I didn't try to add the Printer manualy and search for a driver on the CD. It's an Epson 480SXU, and it doesn't even have a power button! It looks and sounds like some other Epsons are much better. Oh well, it was only $20 after rebate. Anyway, I guess I just should have gone all the way out to his house to try that. It probably would have been easier than this!

Thanks for your help!

Re:Wow, I can no longer find the patch from AMD…Its been a while and I have it on disk. I did however find it at MS here: K6-2 update (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/release.asp?ReleaseID=12635&area=search&ordinal=1) It is a small file and should be put on a floppy disk. I had to set the FSB of my mobo down to 100 mhz(from 133) to get it slow enough to get into safe mode to install the patch (just double-click on the file ant it installs). Your mileage may vary and if I may suggest, If you want a second OS on there, the least I would personally go would be Win98. Win95 does not even support USB (except Win95C, and even that is shakey).

Re:Well, the good news is that I'm now writting from the computer that I'm writting about now that I've done a reinstall of WinXP. The bad news is that my drive letters are still messed up and it won't let me change the drive letter of either C: (Win95) or E: (WinXP). However, it does give me the WinXP boot menu when I start up, and I have a choice between XP and 95. Because I want my configuation to be the way it used to be, I'll probably try to reformat just the Windows partitions, removing Win95 and reinstalling WinXP. I'm hoping that way I can leave my applications partition and my data partition intact, and then I hope that restoring the System State from a backup will make reinstalling software unnecessary. I'll post again to let you all know how that goes.

It looks like if Windows 95 would just start, I could at least do my testing before removing it, but I'm using an AthlonXP 1600+. How drastic is this update from AMD.com, and where exactly is it found?

And as a side note, my CD-ROM isn't actually what it assigned D: to. It made my second hard drive D:. I was going to use that drive for the test, but I don't have anywhere else to store my backups yet, and I was uncomfortable puting my only backups on the hard drive from which they came.

Re:Although I can not help you fix your MBR to get back into XP, I would like to make a suggestion for future use…If you were only going to set up Win95 to test out something and not really use it, you should have done so on a different hard drive to avoid the possibility of screwing up your current installation. AFAIK, win95 can only be set up on C: drive, meaning, if you had XP on C:..It is gone. You may have been able to get it to work right using a utility such as BootMagic, but I couldn't and wouldn't guarantee that. Good luck getting it worked out and if you can restore it, let us know how you did so. I do feel though that a full FDISK and format is coming though.

P.S. While Initializing device IOS: Windows Protection Error. You will get this in Win95 if you are using an AMD machine above K6-2/350. If you feel ambitious, you can get the k62update from AMD.com that resolves a timing issue with Win95 and AMD procs. I just went through this on my AMD XP 1600+ box when goofing around with win95.

Re:I only wanted Win95 for one thing, really. I don't really care about sharing files between them. I do want WinXP on a NTFS partition. My question now is, since I figured out that my drive letters were changed when I installed Win95 (now, C:=E: (WinXP), D:=F:, E:=G:, F:=C: (Win95), R:=D: (CD-ROM)), when I reinstall WinXP, is it going to put anything on the soon to be reformatted Win95 partition, which is currently C:? :confused:

Re:If you dual boot Win95 has to be installed first. Then reinstall WinXp. I would put them both on a Fat32
so you can access and share files between OS's. I never got the Recovery Console to recover or restore
my boot or mbr.

Re:By the repair option, do you mean the Recovery Console? If so, the problem with that is that when I go into that, it asks me which installation I want to log on to, and the only option is E:\Windows, which is strange, since the two installations should be C:\Windows and F:\Windows (although Win95 thought it was also installing to C:\). And even if that is the correct installation, I don't remember the Administrator password! It's a pretty dumb thing, and I had been thinking about changing it, but I never did! I never use it, so I forgot it. Is that my only option besides reinstalling? At least I keep data and applications and seperate partitions, and I have backups even of the system state, so it shouldn't be too painfull.

Thanks for your help!

Re:for starters, if you wanted to dual boot & use XP boot loader, your C partition needs to be fat32 & not Ntfs as regardless of win95 destination partition, some files are written to C.
also, it's best to install win95/98 first before XP to make life simple!
try booting from the XP cd & under the repair option try fixboot in order to recover XP.

Outlook / WinXP says I have unread emails when I do not [splash screen] [sp2]

admin — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:36:23 +0000

Q: I use WinXP SP2 and Outlook 2003 SP2.

When I have my screen locked and the WinXP boot up screen saying “click on your name to” start right under my name says “3 unread emails.

I have no unread emails! Ive right clicked and clicked each folder “Mark all as read” all about 10x. Restarting the computer does nothing.

Everything otherwise function normally. No problems with Outlook or something else. : Confused: In Outlook itself, there are no unread e-mail indicators next to one of the folders. : Confused:

It been like this for a couple weeks now, the install of the OS / Outlook is only about 3 weeks old!

Any ideas about how the stupid thing clear? * Edit *

Guess what? If you have unread e-mails from three years ago buried in your archive folders, Windows will let you know. : O

/crawls rock
/rock slams down under

Best Answer: Download Microsoft Outlook Connector – it's free – from the Microsoft website.

It's excellent – it handles all my email addresses.

Re:Originally posted by: guy
So you don't have MSN Messenger installed? And you have never logged into MSN Messenger and told it you associate your login with you Windows Account?

Nope. I don't have any IM programs loaded. I fixed it already; it was user-error. See my OP. Thanks.

Re:So you don't have MSN Messenger installed? And you have never logged into MSN Messenger and told it you associate your login with you Windows Account?

Re:Originally posted by: guy
Do you have a VoIP system integrated? I've seen some strange effects in our system when voice mails are left or emails are sent to phones and such.

Nope. No VOIP. No modem drivers. No printer (yeah, I know.) No nothing! This is a 3-week old install of everything! The system in general is speedy-speedy and everything runs rock solid.

Obviously, there's a registry setting that's stuck or something.

There's no lost capability or anything like that…it's just annoying to keep seeing it!

*edit*

Holy crap. I found it. See OP.

Re:Do you have a VoIP system integrated? I've seen some strange effects in our system when voice mails are left or emails are sent to phones and such.

Re:Nope. Don't have any other emails. The only emails I get on my home PC are from my domain. There are many different email accounts that Outlook checks, but all are at the same .com.

Re:what about your other email account on hotmail ? Do you have windows messenger setup ?

New installation problems . please help. [splash screen] [lockup]

admin — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 22:22:21 +0000

Q, new XP Pro install . new motherboard, hard drive, new everything.
Formats ok, copy the files OK. If re u0026amp, gets the “39 minutes on” the blocks. Restarting, he can hang at the splash screen, or have as much “reinstall” u0026amp; blocks. Tried 3 different drives u0026amp, reformat (both full u0026amp, fast) u0026amp; reinstall . all with the same results.
Ideas? Suggestions?
Thanks.

Best Answer: Make sure that you're logged in as the computer's administrator.

Double click on My Computer then right click on your CD drive. Choose the Explore option. Then on the CD, run the setup.exe program by right clicking on it and choosing the Run as administrator option.

Re:No offense, guy & guy, after it shut itself down, I lowered the FSB/Multi. I had no idea what it was supposed to be set to. It's currently running about 38-40c. I'll run memtest to make sure, but i'd still like to know why the bios had the fsb/multi set so low & why that had an effect on the install.

Re:Hope I am not offending you! Did you checked the CPU temp? Is the heatsink is installed properly? I think jacking up the CPU speed before installing an OS is not a very good idea.
I have about the same problem in my 741GX-M board and a new sempron CPU. After installing the OS I jacked up the FSB setting to 200 and the system was not even going to the windows login screen. Till that point I had no idea about the CPU temp. I can not even get into the bios setup because of the horrible freezing. So I unplugged the machine and remove CMOS memory and rebooted the machine. this time system was up smoothly and going to BIOS for PC-Health revealed the reason. CPU temp was 87 degree C. I was shocked! The next thing I did was replacining the heatsink and now my system runs properly even after 17% OCing.

Re:Not a good idea to install an OS on an OC'd system. Change settings to 166 FSB and multi 11 (basicaly a 2500+). Then run memtest86 to see if your ram is OK. Unstable ram will foul up an OS too. If it passes, go ahead and install the OS.

Then start OCing again.

guy

Re:Well, you may be onto something. I changed the FSB & Multiplier to your settings just for kicks. It was originally set to 133/Auto. I changed it to 200/11 & restarted. It restarted the installation without lockup, but after a minute or 2 it completely powered off. I unplugged the power cord for a few secs, then plugged it back in & hit the power button while holding down on the key. It again powered off about the time it got to the bios screen. I unplugged everything again, including the atx connectors inside, reset the bios, restarted & went back into the bios. This time I set the FSB to 200 & the multiplier to 8. So far it seems to be continuing the installation procedure just fine.
Thanks for having me check that, tho I must admit I don't know why that had anything to do with it.
BTW, I'm running Memtest on my main machine & it's found an error…does that mean bad memory?

Re:Originally posted by: guy

Originally posted by: guy
Gonna need some system specs if you want any real help, there are just too many variables to narrow down otherwise. I would initially suspect CPU overheating, Video or RAM issues, but a simple BIOS update may be all you need.
Here's the specs:
Shuttle AN35N Ultra motherboard
Asus Radeon 9200SE Video
AMD 2400+ Mobile
TR2TT (Designed by Thermaltake) TR2 M4 CPU Cooler (used AS3)
Kingston 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200
WD1200JB 120GB HD
NEC DVD+/-RW
Antec SLK3700 BQE Case w/350W PS (Antec also)
I checked the temp after several restarts & the cpu was at 32c & the system temp was at 28c.
I'll try another stick of ram to see if that's the case, but like I said, I got past the formatting & the file copying but it either gets stuck on the finishing installation part or on the splash screen or the restarting setup.

Curious, what is your cpu set to? FSB and multi.

guy

Re:Originally posted by: guy

Originally posted by: guy
Did you run MemTest?

No, but I did try 2 different sticks of memory…different brands, different speeds.

Run MemTest. If you have problems with both sticks of memory, you may have a problem with your motherboard.

Re:Originally posted by: guy
Did you plug the 4-pin (ATX12V) connector in? (see page 18, "Step 9" of your mobo manual)

Yes

Originally posted by: guy
Did you run MemTest?

No, but I did try 2 different sticks of memory…different brands, different speeds.

Re:Did you plug the 4-pin (ATX12V) connector in? (see page 18, "Step 9" of your mobo manual)

Re:It's an Antec 350W power supply.

Re:both of you are using 300 watt power supplies,anyone can test with another PSU

Re:Tried the bios flash but it did not help…still freezes after splash screen. Any other ideas?

Re:Tried doing the voltage thing…nada…trying the bios flash now.

Re:Upgrade to the latest BIOS (http://www.shuttle.com/hq/support/download/dwn2.asp?model=AN35/N%20Ultra%20&%20AN35/N-400) if you don't have it already.

Re:I tried a different stick of ram…some PC2700 out of a fairly new Compaq…same results. I'll try setting the voltage to 2.70.

Re:set your ddr volts to 2.70 and retry,sometimes the default voltage is to low

Re:Originally posted by: guy
Gonna need some system specs if you want any real help, there are just too many variables to narrow down otherwise. I would initially suspect CPU overheating, Video or RAM issues, but a simple BIOS update may be all you need.
Here's the specs:
Shuttle AN35N Ultra motherboard
Asus Radeon 9200SE Video
AMD 2400+ Mobile
TR2TT (Designed by Thermaltake) TR2 M4 CPU Cooler (used AS3)
Kingston 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200
WD1200JB 120GB HD
NEC DVD+/-RW
Antec SLK3700 BQE Case w/350W PS (Antec also)
I checked the temp after several restarts & the cpu was at 32c & the system temp was at 28c.
I'll try another stick of ram to see if that's the case, but like I said, I got past the formatting & the file copying but it either gets stuck on the finishing installation part or on the splash screen or the restarting setup.

Re:Originally posted by: guy
It happened to me before. I had bad RAM.

Ditto. Usually will error out or lock. It could also be bad bios configuration(s) in your motherboard.

I would try and run Memtest before trying to install your OS, and see if it comes back with any errors.

Re:It happened to me before. I had bad RAM.

Re:Gonna need some system specs if you want any real help, there are just too many variables to narrow down otherwise. I would initially suspect CPU overheating, Video or RAM issues, but a simple BIOS update may be all you need.

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