How do I troubleshoot/analyze "Intermittent" boot up problems

[wildcat]

How do I troubleshoot/analyze "Intermittent" boot up problems

So I've the following "intermittent" problem,

After POST, during the Windows 7 loading screen, where the 4 colors would merge and form the Window logo. During this loading stage my system intermittently does a reboot.

When it happens, it often happens several times in a row before it actually manage to get past the loading screen and work as normal. When the system is running (in Windows) I've no problems what so ever.

Its more becoming a frustration, than that it is an actually problem for me. But I've been dealing with this issue for long enough... time to see if it can be fixed.

Things I've tried, but failed to yield anything useful.

-Enable Boot logging (Advanced Boot Options)
This doesn't work because it never gets to the state where the ntbtlog.txt file is written with the Boot log results.

-Hardware Diagnostic's (PC-Check from Eurosoft, different memory tests)
Hardware Diagnostic have not been able to find any hardware problems.

-System Stress Test (Intel Burnin Test, OCCP and a few others)
Used for overclocking and confirm you have a stable platform, but I don't have an overclock active nor do the test fail on the stability tests under heavy load.

-OS Re-installation

-Bare basics, (OS, Disk, Keyboard/Mouse Mainboard, CPU and Memory... All other devices not installed/connected.)


I don't have any error log or error to go on, just a reboot during booting.

What tools can I possible look at to analyze and monitor my boot process and hopefully isolate and pin down where things go bad, I'm not keen to go swap out and buy new hardware randomly, hopping to find the possible root cause.

 

[carwiz]

What BIOS version are you on? Have you checked for a BIOS update?

Are you using Intel Rapid Storage Technology? What version? AUSU recommends setting the SATA ports to RAID even though you may not have a RAID configuration. This sounds like there's known problem with the controller on that motherboard.

 

[wildcat]

I'm running the latest version, 36.03 if I recall correctly.
There have not been any new BIOS releases for my board since 2012

I do have Intel Rapid Storage Technology installed, part of my chip-set I believe, but I don't believe I'm using any of it.

Had quick look through the management panel, but its lacks option to modify things, so I'm assuming things will need to be changed in the BIOS.

Will have to explorer this area to night, but any guide or instructions on what to do would be nice, for this is an unknown area to.

 

[wildcat]

I've found the RAID options in the BIOS, enabled this, but this didn't make any difference. For the following up Windows boot, the problem occurred. Have reverted back to AHCI instead of RAID.

I had the latest driver offered by Asus installed for the Intel Rapid Storage Technology, but I've found a newer version, 12.5.0.1066.

Currently have this installed. So far so good, but because its an intermittent problem, I'm not going to celibate just yet.

 

[wildcat]

The issues is still there, but I'm getting a feeling its less frequent...

Still looking for away to analyze boot problems during boot.