Freezes after cold startup

[Clunk]

quite alot of work but seems like i have to do it again i build the whole system myself and it was making sure i didnt have any shorts. who knows maybe i missed one spot.
by the "check the I/O shield" u mean the backplane with usb, audio/video connectors?

Its happened to me many times with the I/O shield - by that I mean the thin metal bezel that presses into your case that the motherboard sockets poke through. If you have a look at it, you'll see that there a small, fine shards of metal sticking out and sometimes these can short out on something, so I always snip them off before I fit the board now.

AHCI can be problematic in some systems, as can NCQ, so if you don't absolutely need those, I would turn them off. Do you still have these problems when the SATA dvd drive is removed?

[Celox]

...only if you are using a backside mounting plate

oh, i do use a backside mounting plate. but i followed the guide which came with the gigabyte board and it fit perfectly.

did a different PSU make any difference at all?

will get one tomorrow from work. though it will take some longer shutdown-time till i find out.
so probably tomorrow new psu test and the day after tomorrow, startup test.

One other thought, do you use driver cleaner when changing between catalyst versions? Might be worth a shot too.

thats one thing i didnt try yet. where can i find it?

Its happened to me many times with the I/O shield - by that I mean the thin metal bezel that presses into your case that the motherboard sockets poke through. If you have a look at it, you'll see that there a small, fine shards of metal sticking out and sometimes these can short out on something, so I always snip them off before I fit the board now.

i will unscrew my board tomorrow after work and have a closer look at it.

AHCI can be problematic in some systems, as can NCQ, so if you don't absolutely need those, I would turn them off. Do you still have these problems when the SATA dvd drive is removed?

i always thought ahci+ncq has less stress on the hdd's, thats why i enabled it
removing the sata dvd drive is worth a try, another thing i havent thought about

i disabled the intel controller and am running now using the jmicron. though i prefer the intel controller one.

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by Celox

thats one thing i didnt try yet. where can i find it?

i disabled the intel controller and am running now using the jmicron. though i prefer the intel controller one.

drivercleaner.net it's about £6 to buy, but it is a very handy bit of software that is worthwhile having for emergencies

I only suggested the Jmicron in case there was a problem with one of your devices or the sockets on the Intel controller.

[affiliate13]

Originally Posted by Celox

thx for ur suggestion guys


my dimms passed the memtest86+ #5 tests, had it running both for an hour.

i have noticed something strange while trying to boot from the memtest86+ cd.
i booted from the cd and it said "Loading....." and my system froze, had to reset by hard reset as crtl+alt+del didnt work.

i went straight into the bios and disabled AHCI and NCQ, to see if that was the problem.
cd booted and tests were error free.


this is what i had in mind after i had the booting problem from cd (sata rom) with the intel controller running as ahci with ncq


quite alot of work but seems like i have to do it again i build the whole system myself and it was making sure i didnt have any shorts. who knows maybe i missed one spot.
by the "check the I/O shield" u mean the backplane with usb, audio/video connectors?


it happens only if the system was shutdown for a longer period of time.
i shutdown my rig before i go to sleep around 11:30pm. i wake up and before i leave for work im checking for new mails around 6:50am and the problem occurs. its pi**ing me off .
once i've checked my mails i shut it down leave for work and around 5:30pm i turn it on again just to get pi**ed off by the problem again
it never occurs a second time after i have reset the system once the freeze happens
i can game, encode, watch shows/movies using media center etc without freezes. its just the very first time i start the system after it has been shutdown for more or around 6 hours


yeah but its really weird that it does not happen when the system was shutdown for 1-2hours. something must be "unloading" that takes alot more time, like overnight.

i checked and redid the whole cabling a few days ago. no contact with other parts. i havent re-mounted the cpu fan yet as its quite heavy and hard to mount, i guess by CPU HSF u mean heat sink fan?

drivercleaner.net very useful.

[Celox]

i tested it this morning with uninstalled ati drivers and running the harddisk on jmicron with disabled intel controller. the system froze exactly like it did before those changes.
im gone open up the rig today after work and reapply the backside mounting plate, cpu cooler and tripple check for any shorts.

anyone know a cpu+ram stress test for dos? if it passes after a cold startup in dos, i could rule out a windows or driver problem.
i think once i get home im gone access the bios and stay in the bios for 10mins if it freezes in bios its definitly a hardware problem.

[Celox]

after trial and error of hardware without having found a short or hardware problem i decided to take a try by re-installing my vista x64. (made a backup image before reinstall)
this time i didnt use my vista x64 oem which has the sp1 included, i installed vista from the very first final vista x64 oem build cd (without sp1 etc).

i traced my eventlog for any upcoming problem with every installed update and driver.

and after hours of tracing my eventlog my system gave me an eventlog error by com+ i had seen a similar error coming up in the previous install but couldn't find any solution for that problem. this time the eventlog error gave me more information and i could trace it down!

the error was:

The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 8007043c.

apparently this error comes with an windows security update... my system froze when i accessed the group policies properties described in kb. i had to apply the changes in safe mode.

You may experience various problems after you install the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-051 for COM+ and MS DTC

oh and another thing my system does not freeze anymore when i get home from work or start it up after hours of downtime!!

thanks guys for your help but it seems like this time it was m$'s fault!

found another blog having a similar problem and many more google entrys with ppl having rebooting loops.

i would recommend to check your eventlog for this error

[Clunk]

Glad you fixed it, thanks for updating us