Hi
Oflate my computer behaves strangely... during the boot, when loading Windows (When the animation begins) it reboots. And after that, it preforms a disk check during which it may or may not reboot again. This occurs randomly, and the whole process itself occurs for random number of times (0 to 5 times max). It occured yesterday, today, and may not occur for weeks to come, and then start all over again. Once booted, the system is rock stable.

I tried keeping the system at Bootmagic level itself, and nothing happened for 40 mins. When I tried booting again, same thing happened. I first thought it could be software problem, but same thing happened when booting Linux also. I'm guessing a hardware problem, but then cannot find the root cause for it.

Incase if it helps,
Windows XP SP1/Redhat Linux 9 on Pentium III@667Mhz with 256M SDRAM, 80(M)+40(S) GB HDDs. Windows XP on the primary on 80GB and Linux on 40GB.

I'm clueless, and will be happy for any assistance/advice/directions.

I'm also looking for a software to scan the HDDs for any defects. Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

Seems like a power supply issue, or IDE chain.
Maybe the power drain at HDD spin-up is too much for it.
Any errors about IDE in the system log?

Err... where do I find the system log?

You know, I was having the same problem for a while, but never found the cause and mostly forgot about it after it stopped happening a while back. I don't think it's a hard drive spin-up issue as everything spins up before the bootloader kicks in and the failure happens a little while after that. Right now, I'm suspecting my power supply, but I have no intention of replacing it and seeing if it fixes things at the moment as I've got a Dell and I'd have to replace the motherboard/processor/memory/etc. due to Dell's silly proprietariness. I don't think it's my hard disk(s) as I've already had one of those flake out on me and remember somewhat different behavior.

So, um, yeah, I guess that wasn't very helpful, but I'm kinda stumped as well.

Right click on My Computer - Select Manage
Double click on Event Viewer
Double click on System

This is the only error I could find...



And the link doesn't work.

Since your using Windows XP, an option for scanning is already built in. Go to your run menu and type "cmd" (without the quotes) and hit enter. This will bring up a command window. Type "chkdsk C: /r" (again, no quotes) to run a full scan and repair if necessary. Replace C: with whatever drive needs scanning. It may tell you that it can't scan but can do so on next boot up. Tell it yes and reboot. Once it's done and Windows has booted up, go into the event viewer as was mentioned earlier in this thread to see the results of the scan.

If you read his first post you will see he has the problem with two different OSs on two different hard drives.

What is your motherboard make and model please?

The PC is a Compaq Presario 5000. The motherboard is Compaq's I think with Intel 810e chipset.

I do not know if this is again a random phenomenon or not, but after leaving it at the Boot manager stage and then proceeding seems to be stable.

You could try to run some stressing benchmark, something which heavily uses your graphics card and CPU, additionally you can launch in the background some large file copying, and spin up the CD drive... Watch the voltages (with a program like SpeedFan or MotherboardMonitor), if they swing too wild or if your computer reboots then it surely is a fault of too weak PSU or your mobo (check if none of the capacitors are bloated or leaked).

EDIT: I remember that some years ago, when I had an Amiga computer, I had a similar problem - after turning it on, it tend to freeze on any HDD-write operation. After few minutes of running and avoiding writing of anything to a HDD (which was possible because Amiga had no virtual memory), the problem was disappearing. The problem disappeard completly after I exchanged the IDE cable. You could ask why the problem was disappearing after few minutes of running ...probably because after few minutes of running, the temperature inside the computer raised enough to stretch the slightly damaged wires inside the IDE cable, so they were catching the contact again So, as ddrawley already said, check your IDE cables too.

Yeah, and one of them is Windows. I'm sorry, but did I say something wrong? Should I have stated I don't know anything about Linux and that is why I only answered the Windows XP side of things regarding his specific question about HD error scanning (which is all I quoted)? Or should I have not posted at all? Regardless, even if it is a hardware problem, it would still be wise to worry about possible data corruption as a result of it. Hopefully someone will be able to point him in the right direction so he can scan the Linux partition too, just to be on the safe side.

PS: If you're overclocked (not sure based on original post since it says @667), try setting everything back to normal speeds. If your not overclocked, then just ignore that last sentence.

My point was simply that since he is having the issue on two different OSs on two different hard drives, it is unlikely to be a software or software corruption issue.

I agree with rutra80. It is a good idea to check/replace your ide cables. It is also a good idea to check the capacitors.

This link shows a nice picture to help spot that issue. Note the round green and gold components. The tops of some are bulged. Those are defective.

Capacitor damage

Guys, thanks for the replies. Now, when I delay in my booting, things seems to work, pretty normal. I just come out of the Bootmagic timing, and wait for 1-2mins, and then proceed booting. Nothing seems to happen this time.

@Rutra80 : I'll try doing a large file transfer and see, if I can spot the issue. Can you recommend a good software for doing the stress testing? I do not have much of a graphics card to test, but I do understand the point. Recommend good monitoring programs too if you can.

@Ddrawley : Thanks for the link... I'll look for defective capacitors also.

@Digisurfer : I'm aware of such a utility and I had pretty bad experience with that in the past. So, am not going to use that, although I do not find such a need. It IS a hardware problem. Thank you all the same for your advice.

Glad to hear you are making progress.
Sounds like a thermal issue. Something is borderline and needs to warm up.

SiSoftSandra has a Burn-In wizard. Tell it to run both CPU benchmarks, file-system benchmark, and memory & cache benchmarks several times in a row. You can also try 3DMark (2000 or 2001 or 2003). As a monitoring program you can use SpeedFan, launch it before the benchmarks and turn on the Vcore (shouldn't swing at all), +3.3V, +5V, and +12V charts for the time of benchmarking.
But first of all you really should borrow or buy a new 80-wire IDE cable, preferably with special ribbons which make unplugging easier & safer.

I have used Docmemory in the past to do a thorough ram test. I had used rev 2.0 if I recall correctly. The current version should be fine.

http://www.simmtester.com/page/products/doc/docinfo.asp

That seems to be the case. Thanks for the link! That was helpful. Now, I do not know whether to cry at the misery or to rejoice at the discovery.

But I guess its high time I go for a new computer.

Thanks for the help, guys!! And thank you Ddrawley!

You are welcome. I am sorry for your loss.

/plays taps