PC will not start from cold boot but ok on restsrt

1vincent · 19 Oct 2013

Hello.
8 days ago i turned on the pc and then my a cup of tea. When i came back the pc had a flashing cursor in the top left screen. I turned it off and then on and then it went as far as the windows progress flash screen and stopped so i rebooted again and after nearly an hour of this i got it working.
There was no blue screen and no error messages apart from 1 about the pc not shutting down properly.
Turned pc off at night time and in the morning the same thing and it has been like that for 4 days.
Thursday i backed up the sata hard drive to a 80gb ide hard drive and then took out the sata drive and put in a 40gb ide drive and reinstalled home premium. It seemed ok but when i went to turn on the pc on Friday morning the same thing happen and the same today.
All that is connected is hard drive,mouse,keyboard,dvd rw,Atheros wireless network card and graphics card which the monitor is connected to.
Thank you for any help you may give me.

TVeblen · 20 Oct 2013

If Windows is starting, but freezes on the "Starting Windows" screen (black screen with coalescing squares) then you are dealing with a hardware error - either malfunction or driver problem.

Have you tried starting in Safe Mode yet?
Press F8 repeatedly just before Windows begins to load (after BIOS splash screen), then choose SAFE MODE from the menu.
See if it will load windows in Safe Mode. Let us know what happens.

1vincent · 21 Oct 2013

When it freezes at the "starting windows" i have to power off and then restart pc. Pressing f8 then safe mode tells takes me to loading windows files then to a screen with options of startup repair,restore,system image and others and i try startup repair and sometimes it say repaired and other times can not fix it. If all goes well i can restart pc ok but in event manager it only shows critical error kernel 41 system not shutting down properly but not why it wont start.
At the start of all this i cleared the cmos and put in new battery but it didnt help.
Yesterday i ran prime95 for nearly 12 hours and it passed all the tests and the pc never froze but tuning it on today the same problems.

TVeblen · 21 Oct 2013

You need to identify which piece of hardware is causing the problem. To do this we usually strip the build down to just the bare necessity parts, then see if it will start normally. If it does you know that it is one of the removed parts. If it does not then you know it is one of the core parts. Core parts are Power Supply, Motherboard, Processor, RAM, Video.
In your case you will need to connect the hard drive. You can also disable some of the components on the motherboard in BIOS for testing.

Worst case, you could be dealing with a failing motherboard (SATA and/or IDE controller).
But my first guess is that the power supply is going. That would explain why the symptoms occur at startup but not after up and running.
Can you borrow a known working power supply to switch out to test with?

1vincent · 23 Oct 2013

Sorry i have not replied earlier but was busy yesterday.
Well i have tried 3 hard drives now.
The 1st 160gb sata was the start so i backed up to a 80gb ide.
2nd 40gb ide installed win7 and that was the same. Took out what i didnt need and left hard drive,network card,ram,video and dvd to use the rescue disk and still the same.
3rd hard drive was a 10gb ide and installed win7 and on cold start it was the same.
I will try and get a psu and try what you suggested.
Thank you for taking the time to help.
Vince

1vincent · 31 Oct 2013

Hello.
I got a new psu but still the same problem.
With new psu i tried adding 1 thing at a time but it was the same as old psu.
Somebody mention to me that a bad MBR on the hard drive maybe making it not start up.
Since i have the new psu i did a clean install of Windows 7 and on updating the drivers i have noticed that when i insert a usb thumb drive/memory stick it appears on the pc but when i try to copy to or from it it will only transfer stuff so far then tell me usb disconnected and try again and twice i got a bsod. The usb stick works on 2 other pc's.
The other thing i have noticed since new psu that last night i turned pc off and at 2 in the morning it started up on iths own.The pc is in my bedroom and i got up and had to turn it off. The only difference in the new psu's has an on/off switch but not on the old one.

TVeblen · 31 Oct 2013

That is odd. Bad USB ports could affect the start up I suppose, and it could explain the Blue Screens. Since you have a fresh install of W7 we may be able to rule out bad driver as the BS cause.

To be clear: we are still dealing with your original problem? The PC does not start at all and freezes on the Windows Splash screen (black display, "Starting Windows", coalescing squares).

If so, let's focus on the motherboard.
First, try a Clear CMOS procedure: ("Clear CMOS" and "CLRTC" are the same thing)

Note all your current BIOS settings
Shut down the computer > remove the power cord.
Remove the 3v motherboard battery.
Move the CLRTC jumper from pins 1-2 to 2-3.
Touch a metal part of the case and Press and Hold the reset button for approx. 30 seconds to discharge all power from the board.
Put the CLRTC jumper back on pins 1-2.
Replace the 3v battery > replace the power cord > boot.
Immediately go back into BIOS and reset all your preferred settings. If the CLRTC worked you will need to reset the date and time in BIOS.

If that does not work then go into your BIOS settings and see if you can disable the LAN and SOUND devices on the motherboard (and any other optional devices). Do one at a time and test.

If that does not work try running the PC with just one stick of RAM in Slot A1. Try each stick alone in A1.

Tell us what you find.

1vincent · 01 Nov 2013

I tried what you suggested.
The 1st worked but pc froze after 10 mins so turned off pc.
Went into bios and disabled lan but wouldn't go past the screen again.
rebooted into bios and disabled sound still the same.
Took out memory and put in 1gb in slot 1 still not working.
Tried in slot 2 still not working and then took it out and reseated it but when i turned it on it never got to the POST screen just a blank monitor and then i smelled a burning like a car clutch so turned it off.
Took out battery and left overnight and tried again today still nothing on the monitor but fan turns and hard drive spins.
Had a look at the cpu and heatsink but didn;t smell burnt so maybe the cpu has gone.
A mate has a cpu i can try but if that fails does it mean a motherboard/cpu and memory?

TVeblen · 01 Nov 2013

The burnt smell is not good. Most often this comes from a failed power supply, but you changed yours so it must be one of the parts on the motherboard.

It is very hard to kill a CPU. They are very resilient and have redundant safety breakers built in.
If I'm going to guess I'm going to say it's the motherboard. Given the problems with the USB it is probably a burnt out southbridge controller. Could be time for a new motherboard.

If it were me I would test your processor in your mate's rig. I would not want a bad motherboard killing a good processor. If his processor is just a spare then it could be OK to do as you plan.

jgiels · 01 Nov 2013

I would think it's not starting from due to hard drive not ready. Then it is when you restart it. Take off fast boot in bios to give hard drive time to spin up.