XP wont boot

[greyskull]

hi all from perth australia. i can only get to boot windows xp if i clear the cmos. it loads the defaults and everything works fine...until...i shut it down and it wont restart unless i again clear the cmos. i suspect the battery...anyone had similar problems...?

 

[dollhobbs]

do you have another battery to check it with? Probably a dumb question for me to ask but you never know.

 

[Mugsy]

...if i clear the cmos. it loads the defaults and everything works fine...until...i shut it down and it wont restart

When you say, "won't restart", what exactly happens?

I suspect there is an incompatible BIOS Setting that is getting saved after you first boot. Windows itself should not be able to alter your BIOS settings.

Does this occur if you boot into Safe Mode?

 

[greyskull]

hi, had the battery checked, its ok. by wont start it would not show mobo splash screen or start the hdd, just the fans and leds on case on. re-seated ram and sound/video cards. only way it would start was to turn off pwr and clear the cmos with via the jumper pins. it would start normally then and all programs and apps worked fine. i decided to shut down in sleep mode. this works fine and it wakes up ok. then decided to try a restart and you wouldn't believe it it shut down and restarted ok...done this a few times now and it reboots ok...haven't turned off completly yet...a bit scared to...(jumper pin on standby..lol)...noticed the surge protector has tripped and this may have happened days,weeks ago, who knows so may have had a power spike??. I should say the problem occured while using the computer, i clicked on my bank link on the desktop and it just went black, reset didn't help, it was lifeless apart from the fans etc. thats when i tried the cmos. so at the moment it is running again and may have a fault on the mobo that will come and go..gremlins eh!!..thanks for replying..i'll keep you posted on what happens..off to buy a new surge protector...

 

[Mugsy]

hi, had the battery checked, its ok. by wont start it would not show mobo splash screen or start the hdd, just the fans and leds on case on. re-seated ram and sound/video cards. only way it would start was to turn off pwr and clear the cmos

While a new Surge Protector isn't a bad idea, I suspect it won't fix your problem, since "clearing the CMOS" allows you to boot fine.

By never powering off, your computer restarts because your HDD's never power/spin down to a full stop. It sounds like your drives are not spinning up when you cold boot.

As I noted previously, it is rare that Windows can alter your CMOS settings (though many newer boards come with apps that can), so I'd be willing to bet clearing the CMOS to boot is only a coincidence.

Try this... instead of clearing the CMOS, simply go into the BIOS as soon as you turn on the PC instead of booting into Windows and wait for your C: drive to spin up to full speed (this shouldn't take but a few seconds). Once you are sure your system is "warmed up", warm reboot into Windows.

If this works, your HDD is probably failing. I'd be willing to bet a power surge damaged it. Back everything up and replace your drive asap.

 

[greyskull]

Just thought I'd get back to you all and say that my computer has been running fine now for 3 weeks. Have no idea whatsoever as to why it developed the problem it had. Spoke to several techs about it and they can only suggest that a spike or surge caused the malfunction. As to why i could only get it to boot by clearing the cmos they have no answer, and to why it has resumed normal operation. So thanks to everyone out there, perhaps if someone has a similar problem my experience may be of some help to you. Cheers !