11 replies to this topic

[Sniprwulf]

Alright, so I know my computer pretty well but there's two things that are really starting to piss me off that I can't figure out how to fix. Hopefully maybe some of you can help me.

1. Bootup: Booting up my PC takes approximately 4 minutes. The only reason being once bios goes through recognizing all of my drives etc., then goes to boot from my HD. It goes to a blank screen for about 3 to 3 and a half minutes and then the windows xp pro screen finally starts up. If i restart my computer right as the blank screen comes up, my computer will go through bios and then the screen that windows didn't startup normally, what would you like to do screen comes up and i hit start windows normally and it starts. I'm like WTF> is going on. Any advice?

2. Computer freeze: Okay this is really weird. I don't know why its happening, only guess might be video card. Whenever I'm playing a game that uses a decent amount of resources, about 15 minutes into it my screen will just freeze and have some weird lines going across it but the image is still rather clear. I can still hear sound for about 20 seconds then it just cuts out. I can't CTRL ALT DEL or nothing, can't ALT TAB either, just a complete freeze then I have to restart. Anyone might know what's causing this?????????????

Thanks in advance

BTW, I just reformatted and that didn't help.

[Novahawk]

Dont know about the first thing.. but im betting its either yor psu or your video card for the second thing...might be that your psu is not powerful enough to power everything when alot of resources are used while you are playing a game.. or its your video card overheating or its just overloading or something.. so first check if anything is overheating, then check how powerful your psu is.. and see if its powerful enough to give power to all of your componenets.. hope that helps

[ghozy]

download the tweaking guide at this address:
http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

then find the drive optimization section, then there is boot optimization section in that part. i did it and it reduced my boot time to seconds. give it a try but read the warnings before doing any tweak.

Edited by ghozy, 29 October 2006 - 01:46 PM.

[Sniprwulf]

nothing's overheating from hardware standpoint that im monitoring but i believe it could be my psu.. idk

and ghozy, yeah ill try that but the thing is my startup isnt normal at all, it takes 3-4 minutes before i even see the windows loading screen.. esp since i have a fast processor 4000+.. gay

[The Drizzle]

Your PSU seems to be good enough for the setup you have. The 7800GT's were power hungry and ran hot, so it might not be a bad idea to check temperatures on that. The video/freezing problem sounds like the video card is overheating.

As for the boot problem, if you say you restart the comp while the blank screen is up, when it starts again you get a menu with the "start windows normally" thing with a bunch of other options, that means XP has begun to boot. It displays that screen if windows dosent finish loading properly. You can try running a program called bootvis. Linkage and see if something in the beginning is taking a long time to load.

Also, right after the bios is finished doing its thing, and before the blank screen comes up, continually press F8 so you get that same menu as before and run safe mode, see if that does anything.

[Sniprwulf]

Your PSU seems to be good enough for the setup you have. The 7800GT's were power hungry and ran hot, so it might not be a bad idea to check temperatures on that. The video/freezing problem sounds like the video card is overheating.

thats defly not it since i have a zalman cooler and it never goes over 48 celcius under load. as per the boot problem, i've had it once before and I formatted and it got rid of it for a while then it came back. i've used bootvista b4 and i guess ill reinstall it.. its just f*ckin wierd.

thanks for the advice tho.. the freeze thing hasnt happened in a day so we'll see what happens. i let my comp sit off for a day..

[ShLoNkY]

Try and update your bios. My computer did a coupla stupid things. One being that it wouldnt boot without a windows cd in the drive for some reason and the other was that my x1800xt would not display anything via DVI cable. Using one of those stupid adapters DVI to VGA worked. I updated my bios and they were both magically fixed.

If you are going to do this in windows, for the love of god make sure ALL your apps are turned off. If it f*cks up/locks/crashes during the bios update you are pretty much f*cked. Well not completely you have to do it viz floppy which is a pain in the ass.

As far as your video card hangups, Id update drivers or roll them back to a previous release. I think that they have Omega drivers for nvda cards, you may wanna try those out.

Goodluck.

[Beaners]

ok well let me take a shot at this one boys. HEHE If you can just give me a detailed description about your 2nd problem that will be great. Also your computer specs. Like all about it. Ram, Motherboard, harddrive, video card, give me all the specs and brands on all those. Most problems with computers today are with how hardware works with eachother. For example maybe a Gigebyte Motherboard doesnt like a Maxtor Harddrive and might as funny and just freeze up for no reason. But that doesnt happen often.


Also UPDATE EVERY DRIVER YOU HAVE!! Go to all manufactors websites for all your hardware and get all the newest drives for everything. This useally fixes all problems and makes thing run faster. So if you can give me that info i can help you without a doubt. My suggestion on the restart time is something i just learn recently(credit to Shadow{owner}) Set your Prefetch to 5.


Open RUN type REGEDIT then follow the given path below...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CURRENTCONTROLSET / SESSION MANAGER / MEMORY MANAGEMENT / PREFETCHPARAMETERS ...

Now that your in PrefetchParameters youll see EnablePrefetcher. Right Click then Modify. Make sure you in Binary state and change the default number to 5. Then reboot. If doesnt help you out at all please say so, so i can give you another thing to do.

[Sniprwulf]

Arright. Thanks for the help but I'm not gunna put all my info down cause it'll take too long. Most of its in my sig, and I have 1.06 TB of space on 6 diff hd's and they've all been working fine and have had this setup aprox. a year.

Right now prob #2 isn't an issue b/c I can't even get CS (working on fixing that) to load due to an error and it doesnt happen anymore in the other games that I play. Idk, I'm troubleshooting it right now and I seem to have gotten my computer to start normally a couple of times and things seem to be getting better... weird how sh*t does this sometimes. I'll keep ya updated

Edited by Sniprwulf, 30 October 2006 - 05:53 PM.

[Novahawk]

Oh yeah i forgot about the stuff in your sig... yeah your psu is enough to handle all of the stuff..

[Beaners]

O lol sorry didnt see that stuff in your Sig should have said PC info is in sig :P Well it might just be a random problem that will fix itself. Things happen like that all the time and shouldnt be dealt with to harshly or else youll just go crazy and kill yourself. Sometimes just good to lets things relax, cool off, and just chill out for a bit. If you keep comp on all time try turning off for a night or so

[kidcapri]

Run memtest on your computer. Could be some f*cked memory. This could be the cause of both problems. I am sure you have already done this, but run some virus scans. Also scan for adware and spyware. Hope you figure it out.