PC freezes at motherboard splash screen, could it be power supply?

[midnight1020]

For a little while, I was periodically getting the blue screen of death... more frequently lately. When I checked the Event viewer in Vista it had an error each time it happened that said something about Power Management kernel error and Processor 0. Also I sometimes heard beeps before the blue screens would happen that sounded like it could be coming from the power supply, but it was hard to tell. Now the computer just freezes at the motherboard splash screen and will not boot (can't even get into BIOS). Could this be caused by a bad power supply?

 

[raybay]

Not likely. It is more likely the hard drive is failing... or you have a problem elsewhere.

Usually the power supply will either work or quit all together.

 

[midnight1020]

Hmm..... that's kind of crappy, I was hoping that I could just throw in another power supply and be off and running. Any suggestions on next steps? I assume the culprit drive be the one with the operating system installed on it and that none of the other drives would cause it, is that a fair assumption? Second, would an appropriate next step be to install an OS on another drive and just see if that will work?

Thanks again.

 

[LinkedKube]

Did you try doing a disk check through "properties" on the hard drive?

 

[midnight1020]

Well, I ran the check disk on 2 of the hard drives (there are 4 of them). I did not, however, run it on the one with the OS installed. And I can't run it now because I can't get past the motherboard splash screen. Uggghhhh!

 

[LinkedKube]

try it in safe mode, also have you tried to download anything lately, or is there anything restricting you from downloading anything. I had disk errors recently and it was due to malware.

 

[midnight1020]

I can't even get to safe mode. It freezes as soon as it hits the motherboard splash screen, I can't even get to the BIOS.

 

[raybay]

It appears you have a bad hard drive or a bad install of the hard drive. I would try a different drive as a test. It that doesn't work, then you have some detailed tracking ahead of you... some hardware item, or the driver for that hardware has failed, if the reinstall on a new drive does not work.

 

[rev_olie]

Have you tried stripping the PC down? eg booting with only the necesary components. Surely you dont need 4 HDD's on every boot?

 

[midnight1020]

OK, I finally had a chance to strip it down and test it. I booted it with just the video card, and C drive attached and it still froze at the motherboard splash screen. I then disconnected the C drive and tried to boot the machine and it again froze at the splash screen and would not let me get into the BIOS. Any ideas, could it be the video card or it's drivers? Or the motherboard?

 

[raybay]

Power supply tester is around $10. Or try a different power supply.
Then check the CPU cooling fan. If it is not wobbling, or making noise, you may be ok there. Then check the video card cooling fan... does it turn free and loose
So my vote is for a video graphics driver, or the card itself.
I doubt that it is the motherboard, as the symptom is not typical...
Driver failures and video graphics card failures.
If your board has an onboard video socket, I would remove the video card and try again with onboard video.
We have seen the problem come up with either a defective sound card in a pci slot, or an unused modem, or a USB card in a pci slot. But the video driver or card are the most common... after the cpu fan.