Computer Freezes at Motherboard Screen

[billquinn]

I was attempted to install first Windows XP to be followed by a fresh install of Fedora 11. After repartitioning the disk drive, Windows setup needs to reboot the computer. Well, the ASUS screen comes up, where one is given the option of pressing DEL to get into the BIOS. But that screen is frozen; DEL doesn't bring up the BIOS, and CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't work either. It's just frozen at the ASUS motherboard identification screen. Turning off the power and turning it back on produces the same results.

I've never seen this happen before, and I have a hard time believing any software could screw up this early part of the boot process. But it also seems a highly unlikely coincidence that the hardware (motherboard? CPU chip? disk drive?) should pick this exact time to fail.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Bill

[Nokia]

Try a Bios reset first. And look for a Bios upgrade too.

[billquinn]

I'll try the BIOS reset. Thanks.

Bill

[billquinn]

No, resetting the BIOS had no effect. To reset the BIOS, I pulled the motherboard battery and then restored it after about 15 minutes. When I turned the computer power on, the motherboard screen came up but as before froze. Pressing DEL to get into the BIOS doesn't have any effect.

Also, when frozen in this step of the booting process, am I right that there is no way to do a BIOS upgrade? Anyway, the BIOS was just fine before I reformatted the disk drive and tried to install XP.

[Nokia]

Check MOBO's manual - Troubleshooting section

[billquinn]

The motherboard is the ASUS P4P800-VM. The User Guide has no troubleshooting section. There's a small section, "Recovering the BIOS with CrashFree BIOS2." It says to boot the system, and when a corrupted BIOS is detected, a message will appear: "Bad BIOS checksum. Starting BIOS recovery..."

That message, of course, never appears because the initial screen simply freezes.

[Nokia]

You have hardware issues. Perhaps faulty RAM ? You need to take care of it prior to discussing software glitches.
I f you have two ram bars, try booting with each one. Might find the culprit by doing so...

[billquinn]

There are two memory bars. I'll try booting with each one separately.

[Dies]

I've never seen this happen before, and I have a hard time believing any software could screw up this early part of the boot process.l

Yup, this is very unlikely to have to do with reformatting a disk or installing any OS.


Not much you can really do if it's stopping that early in the boot process. :(

If you haven't tried already, I would power down and unplug the machine for a bit, then remove the battery and jump the 'Clear CMOS' pins, it should be described in your manual, possibly look for a 'Jumper' section.

Then re-connect everything and cross your fingers.

[Nokia]

Erm...Dies, I think we're past clearing CMOS :)

[billquinn]

I tried booting with each of the memory sticks in turn by itself in slot one. No good. Same freeze occurs.

[Nokia]

I tried booting with each of the memory sticks in turn by itself in slot one. No good. Same freeze occurs.
Just in case, try booting with your HDD('s) unplugged from both data and power cables.
I'm afraid you have an appointment with your local dealer/retailer. :cool:

[billquinn]

I'll try disconnecting the disk drive.

[billquinn]

Your "just in case" hit the nail on the head!! I disconnected the disk drive and booted. This time the following messages came up:

CMOS settings wrong
CMOS Date/Time not set
F1 for setup
F2 to load default values

I put in the XP CD and pressed F2. It booted from the DVD drive and went into the XP setup.

I assume the first two of those four messages were given because I had removed the battery on a previous step.

Two questions:

(1) WHY!?!?!? did the CMOS or BIOS simply put a message up that the disk drive was bad or not responding instead of just hanging?

(2) Does this result definitely prove I need to buy a new disk drive?

[Nokia]

Your HDD might be broken beyond repair/recovery of data.
CMOS errors are normal since you reset it without reconfiguring the Bios properly > time and date included.
For question 1, ask the Mobo manufacturer, or even better, the Bios manufacturer.

[billquinn]

Thanks for all your help. I guess I'm on the market for a new disk drive.

Bill

[kyryder]

I see Nokia is of line so I will attempt to answer you questions.

1. bad design

2. No, This could be caused by a couple things. It could be a cable or power supply problem or even a on board controller failure . I would try first connect a different power supply cable, if you don't have a free one remove the one from your cd rom. If that didn't work try the same thing with ata/sata/pata cable and post back the results.

Best of luck

[Dies]

Erm...Dies, I think we're past clearing CMOS :)

Ha ha, yeah... I came back to it... probably should have deleted it once I noticed there were like way more post above me than I remembered.

:D

Anyways, glad to see you guys got it past that.

[Nokia]

I see Nokia is of line so I will attempt to answer you questions.

1. bad design

2. No, This could be caused by a couple things. It could be a cable or power supply problem or even a on board controller failure . I would try first connect a different power supply cable, if you don't have a free one remove the one from your cd rom. If that didn't work try the same thing with ata/sata/pata cable and post back the results.

Best of luck
1. Nokia is always offline :cool:

2. le'me guess: cable broke loose while installing an os ? :D

[billquinn]

"Just in case," I'll try the cable experiments... :)

[kyryder]

2. le'me guess: cable broke loose while installing an os ? :D

:p I agree not likely, but why leave a stone unturned:p.

[billquinn]

I tried a different data cable and a different power cable on the disk drive. The result was the same old freeze. I moved that same data cable and power cable to the DVD drive with the XP CD in it, and it booted into the XP setup. Everything, of course, was done with the primary IDE on the motherboard.

Can we now conclude that the disk drive is definitely bad?

[kyryder]

Can we now conclude that the disk drive is definitely bad?

Sure sounds like it.