Topic: Intermittent startup problem

[Pwilsonscott]

Hello.
I have an occasional problem with my PC.
It is a microland tech CB 150.1 with windows XP
The monitor is occasionally blank on startup. I can hear the fan working in the PC, and the light is blinking on the monitor like its in standby mode - normally moving the mouse would activate it but it doesn't on these occasions.
i have noticed there is no " beep " and keyboard lights when this problem occurs.
I can ususally fix it by holding down the silver button few a few seconds on the PC to turn it off, unplug the keyboard and mouse from the back ( they are not USB connected but the round connectors ) removing the PC Power lead and flicking the switch off and on.
When all is connected again everything seems fine !
I would be happy to try a new keyboard but i wonder if its a deeper problem.

Many Thanks

Paul

[Sandra]

If its not doing the "post" beep then I would suspect that the bios is set to halt on all errors or on keyboard errors and for some reason its stopping booting at that point.
Does it only start ok by doing what you have described and not just by pressing the reset button ?

The first thing I would do is change the settings in the bios, usually on the first page, to halt on no errors and see if that fixes it.
If it then boots into windows and the mouse and/or keyboard dont work then its a problem with one or both of those, or the PS2 ports and drivers.
If it still wont boot into windows then let us know and maybe someone will come up with an answer.

[Pwilsonscott]

Thanks Sandra

The setting is currently on "Halt on All, But Keyboard" which i will change to halt on no errors and see what happens.
Regarding the reset, is it the small indented button below the large silver button ? I have never used that as i switch off the computer from the start menu sung the mouse to select the poer off option.

[Sandra]

Yes its the one thats hard to accidentally press, unlike the main power button, as it will instantly restart the machine whereas the power button can be set to switch the pc off after its been held in for 4 seconds as "Soft Off".

[Pwilsonscott]

OK, thanks Sandra.
I have rebooted a number of times with the new setting - it has opened up into windows every time.
I haven't noticed anything not working so far, i will keep an eye on it.
Appreciate your help.

Paul

[Sandra]

May just be a bit of a glitch that was causing it to think it had a problem when there really wasnt one, hopefully 

[Pwilsonscott]

Oh dear ! The failure to boot into windows has re occurred, i guess thats the nature of intermittent problems - you're never quite sure if its fixed.
After powering off, i seem to be able to resolve the problem every time by flicking the rocker switch on the back of the PC off then on again, whereas before i have always left this on.
I am happy to do this every time now, but i just wonder if its a sign of something more serious?

[Sandra]

It doesnt sound good 

As you say intermittent faults are the worst to diagnose and fix.

Does it run perfectly ok when it does boot into windows with no lockups or problems ?

[Pwilsonscott]

Yes, when i get into windows there are no apparent problems, everything seems fine.
Very Puzzling.

[Sandra]

I think its probably going to be a memory problem.
Do you know if you have more than one stick of ram in ?
If you have 2 sticks in then take one out and see if it will boot ok each time.
If its still doing the same then put that stick back and remove the other.

If you only have a single stick then you need to run a memory checking program such as memtest86 from :

www.memtest.org

You want either :

Download - Pre-Compiled EXE file for USB Key (Pure DOS)


Download - Pre-Compiled package for Floppy (DOS - Win)


From the section  ** Memtest86+ V1.70 (01/14/2007) **

If your PC has a floppy drive, some pcs foolishly dont have floppy drives these days, then extract the file from the package for floppy and run it on your pc and it will make a bootable floppy for you.

If your pc doesnt have a floppy and you have a USB flash drive then use the USB option.

Whichever option you choose then set the bios to boot from that device first and let it boot the pc and it will run the diagnostic check, it can take some time to thoroughly test the ram and its usually better if you have multiple sticks of ram in to run it with single sticks at a time in the pc.

[Pwilsonscott]

Not sure if this is connected to the problem, but i have noticed that a couple of " SAVED " posititions in games have disappeared, and one of the control keys in the game has been re-assigned from the left mouse click to another key. I may have changed these accidently but i don't think so. Thanks.