Oh wow FUBAR PC. XP or hardware?

[redrumloa]

Not good. I have an XP based PC (AARGH!) that has been stable until recently. First i was getting BSOD on rare occasion, for no apparent reason. It was determined to be a bad memory module(failed memory torture test). After it was removed, all was well. Suprisingly stable system overall.

Now the horror. Last saturday i removed the CDRW/DVD combo driver and installed a new TDK DVDRW drive. As soon as Xp would get to the login screen I'd get a BSOD, and the system would reboot before i could even read the error message(~1 second). In disguist I flashed the MB with the latest bios(only changed seemed unrelated and insignificant), and updated the most recent VIA 4-in-1 driver pack(also seems unrelated and insignificant). XP itself is up to date.

Still no good. Now Xp will get past the login screen, but as soon as it detects the new drive I get the same BSOD. Growl.. Ok, i temporary put the drive on another PC(Win98), download the latest firmware and put it back in the other PC. No change.

I let a few days pass due to lack of time. Now yesterday I did further. suspecting there may be a hardware problem with the motherboard I put the old CDRW/DVD combo drive back in. Now it is doing the same thing! Shut down, go into Safe Mode. SAME THING! Disconnect the drive, no CD drives hooked up. Load Safe mode. Go into Device Manager. WTF? It's showing a SCSI controller and an Elby SCSI CDROM drive? I don't have ANY SCSI devices on this PC. :-( i tried to uninstall. IMMEDIATE BSOD and reboot(too fast to read). I try to disable the device, BSOD. Same sh--.

Now WTF? The DVD drive is likely good. Is this an ugly XP issue or a hardware MB issue? I guess the next step will be to reinstall XP to see what happens. I thought XP was supposed to be more stable to the point of no hard crashes :-?

[bloodline]

redrumloa wrote:
Not good. I have an XP based PC (AARGH!) that has been stable until recently. First i was getting BSOD on rare occasion, for no apparent reason. It was determined to be a bad memory module(failed memory torture test). After it was removed, all was well. Suprisingly stable system overall.

Now the horror. Last saturday i removed the CDRW/DVD combo driver and installed a new TDK DVDRW drive. As soon as Xp would get to the login screen I'd get a BSOD, and the system would reboot before i could even read the error message(~1 second). In disguist I flashed the MB with the latest bios(only changed seemed unrelated and insignificant), and updated the most recent VIA 4-in-1 driver pack(also seems unrelated and insignificant). XP itself is up to date.

Still no good. Now Xp will get past the login screen, but as soon as it detects the new drive I get the same BSOD. Growl.. Ok, i temporary put the drive on another PC(Win98), download the latest firmware and put it back in the other PC. No change.

I let a few days pass due to lack of time. Now yesterday I did further. suspecting there may be a hardware problem with the motherboard I put the old CDRW/DVD combo drive back in. Now it is doing the same thing! Shut down, go into Safe Mode. SAME THING! Disconnect the drive, no CD drives hooked up. Load Safe mode. Go into Device Manager. WTF? It's showing a SCSI controller and an Elby SCSI CDROM drive? I don't have ANY SCSI devices on this PC. :-( i tried to uninstall. IMMEDIATE BSOD and reboot(too fast to read). I try to disable the device, BSOD. Same sh--.

Now WTF? The DVD drive is likely good. Is this an ugly XP issue or a hardware MB issue? I guess the next step will be to reinstall XP to see what happens. I thought XP was supposed to be more stable to the point of no hard crashes :-?

I had a very similar problem with XP, A hard drive and an old Mobo. I had a dual boot 2K and XP, 2K ran fine with the HD XP would crash shortly after boot...

The only solution was to chuck the old Mobo.

[redrumloa]

bloodline wrote:
I had a very similar problem with XP, A hard drive and an old Mobo. I had a dual boot 2K and XP, 2K ran fine with the HD XP would crash shortly after boot...

The only solution was to chuck the old Mobo.

Ouch.. This motherboard is fairly recent though. It's an MSI KT7 Ultra 2 (KT333 chipset)... I'd hate to see this be the case..

[Glaucus]

Try a WindowsXP repair operation. I think you need to boot up with the WinXP discs, which should present you with a repair option.

Also, if you have the recovery console installed, try doing some HD integrity tests (chkdsk /p). I've linked WinXP instabilities to poor HD integrity in the past (back in the days when I was running my system of an IBM DeathStart HD).

You may also want to remove all other hardware components, and disable all BIOS peripherals. Your BIOS may have an option to revert to a fail-safe configuration, in which case, use it. Also, are you over clocking anything? Reset everything to factory settings and slowly re-build your system one component at a time.

Good luck.

  - Mike

[Jeff]

Check the voltages on the PS.  I have had low voltages problems show up just like bad memory. Check them all, even the Negative voltages.

Also check the the CPU hasn't been overheated due to any of the usual causes, HSF not centered quite properly, fan death, ect. What you are describing does sound like a low level hardware issue.  IDE cable pulled half way out at MB?

Good Luck,
Jeff

[Glaucus]

Jeff wrote:
IDE cable pulled half way out at MB?

Oh that reminds me of another point I was gonna mention....  Try different cables. Almost sounds like a bad cable problem.

  - Mike

[Vincent]

While doing as the others suggested, I have one small suggestion.

If you do manage to get XP booted past the login screen right click on My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced -> Startup & Recovery Settings -> untick Automatically restart.

Now you'll be able to read the BSOD error and tell us what it says.

You probably knew all that anyway, but in moments like this it's the simple things you miss :-)

[issarad]

The Elby SCSI device gets installed by either DaemonTools or CloneCD/DVD (I forget which one.)  If you have either of those installed, you may want to totally uninstall them temporarily and see if you can get your system stable again without them.

[Vincent]

Good point.  Daemon Tools has problems with XP SP2 and causes bsods during bootup (usually before the XP loading screen appears).

[redrumloa]

Really good suggestions and info guys, thank you very much:-)

I'll be spending a little more time on it tonight, I'll report back later.

[Ilwrath]

Yeah, I'd check that power supply, as well.  Power supplies seem fond of blowing up when any kind of hardware is changed, and they'll cause RAM errors to be detected before they totally fail.

Now, if the power is known good, next thing I'd attack is the software.  Most likely there is a driver conflict / or one of the more advanced copy protection schemes went awry.  If that's the case, though, the only real solution would be to format/reinstall.  I've not seen a Windows build properly recover after that kind of a conflict, especially if it is involving some DRM that went wrong.  (VERY LIKELY)  See some of the newer DRM routines (which are silently and automatically installed with many new shrink-wrapped programs!) install phantom CD devices into the registry, etc...  Swapping out a CD drive can cause those DRM drivers to crash, basically leaving your windows box totally hosed until a complete rebuild.

Those are the two most likely things.  Really, I'd suspect it's #2, but #1 is easier to check.  ;-)  I highly doubt it's something wrong with your motherboard.

[Glaucus]

Any news?

  - Mike

[redrumloa]

Glaucus wrote:
Any news?

  - Mike

Well I've installed XP to a seperate HD, and everything is working fine. I havn't tried to fix this first one yet due to lack of time. i may just move everything over to this HD.

[Turambar]

I had a similar problem recently but it only happened when i booted with a disc in the drive  :-?  Fixed now though, installed a new motherboard(upgrade to an abit nf7-s) and formatted my HD.

[GadgetMaster]

@Red

I've come across many PC's that had the same symptoms as yours. It did turn out to be a software problem in all of the cases.

XP is sensitive to changes in hardware sometimes. It can also be a corrupted system file.

If no important data needs saving then the best way is to re-format and install from scratch.

I fixed those systems by booting off the XP CD because data needed saving. The procedure follows:

At first it will give you an option of pressing 'R' for the recovery console or pressing Enter to continue the installation.

You press Enter and then press F8 to agree to the license agreement (Yeah like you have a choice :lol: ). It will start looking for any existing XP installation at this point and if it finds one it presents you with two choices again. It should say pres 'R' to repair windows or press enter to continue with a new installation.

At this point press the 'R' key to repair and it will go through all the motions as if it is doing a fresh installation. It is actually only replacing the System files and should keep your settings, drivers and data intact.

It is only good enough to get your system up and running again to enable you to back up your data. I would reccommend a clean installation after any important things have been backed up.

Using another hard drive as the main drive for booting (like you did) is the more expensive solution. :-)