Computers & Electronics

freezing on boot up

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  • Sep 23rd, 2010 12:32 am
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Deal Addict
Feb 17, 2005
1072 posts
391 upvotes

freezing on boot up

Hi

My computer suffers from freezing on boot up. it gets stuck on the bios screen. So i hold down the power button to power it down and then re-power it back up. on the 2nd try, it doesn't freeze and windows loads up. Happens 6 out of 7 times.

i did some googling, some say it's hard drive, some say i have to dismantle some parts and re-assemble. I've asked some people and they also said it could be the PSU (i put in a video card about 4 months ago and it's a stock PSU). Any ideas?

Specs are:

Dell Desktop
Athlon x2 4200 (Stock)
3GB RAM (upgraded from 1GB to 3GB)
150GB HDD (stock)
Radeon 4350 (upgraded from onboard)
stock PSU is rated about 300W

And it's running win 7. I'm currently just leaving my computer on sleep mode when i'm away instead of turning it off.


Thanks!
13 replies
Deal Expert
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Dec 12, 2009
29541 posts
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It may be the sleep mode. I think in sleep mode, your ram is kept active and so if there is any kind of power disturbance, the contents of the ram will be all messed up. That could affect boot up. Try normal shut down.
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Feb 4, 2002
4070 posts
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Barrie, Ontario
My first guess would be PSU or motherboard. Check the board to see if you have any leaking capacitors. Try another PSU, if it boots no problem that is an easy fix.
Deal Addict
Feb 17, 2005
1072 posts
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will888 wrote: It may be the sleep mode. I think in sleep mode, your ram is kept active and so if there is any kind of power disturbance, the contents of the ram will be all messed up. That could affect boot up. Try normal shut down.


i've only gone onto sleep mode because if i do a shut down, it can't power back up without freezing.
Deal Addict
Feb 17, 2005
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FerrisB wrote: My first guess would be PSU or motherboard. Check the board to see if you have any leaking capacitors. Try another PSU, if it boots no problem that is an easy fix.

i don't have another PSU sitting around, so i would have to go and buy one to determine the problem...was hoping to isolate the problem without making a financial committment....but will examine for any leaks. thanks
Deal Expert
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Dec 12, 2009
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porkchopbread wrote: i've only gone onto sleep mode because if i do a shut down, it can't power back up without freezing.

Then I would place my bet on some kind of power supply issue.
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Jan 21, 2010
3373 posts
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Scarborough, ON
porkchopbread wrote: Hi

My computer suffers from freezing on boot up. it gets stuck on the bios screen. So i hold down the power button to power it down and then re-power it back up. on the 2nd try, it doesn't freeze and windows loads up. Happens 6 out of 7 times.

i did some googling, some say it's hard drive, some say i have to dismantle some parts and re-assemble. I've asked some people and they also said it could be the PSU (i put in a video card about 4 months ago and it's a stock PSU). Any ideas?

Specs are:

Dell Desktop
Athlon x2 4200 (Stock)
3GB RAM (upgraded from 1GB to 3GB)
150GB HDD (stock)
Radeon 4350 (upgraded from onboard)
stock PSU is rated about 300W

And it's running win 7. I'm currently just leaving my computer on sleep mode when i'm away instead of turning it off.


Thanks!

Hi,

When its loading in the bios does it display the diagnostic stuff or is it a quick boot with a still image (intel logo or whatever the mobo manufacturer is) then freezes?
Try going into the bios and disable any quick boot option so it does all the hardware diagnostic stuff, if it freezes on that spot you should see which hardware its having problems with.

Some BIOS also has hardware health info for things like HDD (sometimes under "SATA configuration" and see if it's seeing the devices).
Sr. Member
User avatar
Jul 9, 2007
573 posts
87 upvotes
Oakville
porkchopbread wrote: Hi

My computer suffers from freezing on boot up. it gets stuck on the bios screen. So i hold down the power button to power it down and then re-power it back up. on the 2nd try, it doesn't freeze and windows loads up. Happens 6 out of 7 times.

i did some googling, some say it's hard drive, some say i have to dismantle some parts and re-assemble. I've asked some people and they also said it could be the PSU (i put in a video card about 4 months ago and it's a stock PSU). Any ideas?

Specs are:
Dell Desktop
Athlon x2 4200 (Stock)
3GB RAM (upgraded from 1GB to 3GB)
150GB HDD (stock)
Radeon 4350 (upgraded from onboard)
stock PSU is rated about 300W
Kinda happening to me too. I've got an Inspiron 531, sounds like the same setup. I booted into the dell recovery partition and ran the hd diagnostics, it said the hd is failing. Also got the occasional bsd. So i ended up getting another drive and I'm in the process of reinstalling my warez. Need to know if I swap sata channels will the new hd boot or do I have to use the win recovery console to put in a new BCD. I should have done that before re-installing, so now the faulty drive is the boot drive and the second drive with win installation isn't the "system" drive.
My system is a samsung 160gb, which I suspect yours is the same. You should have a 10gb recovery partition. My system date is Jan'08, maybe samsung drives have a short life.
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May 14, 2007
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Scarborough / Markha…
-Check PSU
-hd tune or some kind of diagnostic tool for hdd's to test
-download memtest and check ram
Deal Addict
Feb 17, 2005
1072 posts
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crowTrobot wrote: Hi,

When its loading in the bios does it display the diagnostic stuff or is it a quick boot with a still image (intel logo or whatever the mobo manufacturer is) then freezes?
Try going into the bios and disable any quick boot option so it does all the hardware diagnostic stuff, if it freezes on that spot you should see which hardware its having problems with.

Some BIOS also has hardware health info for things like HDD (sometimes under "SATA configuration" and see if it's seeing the devices).


It gets stuck on the Dell logo. The initializing bar at the bottom gets stuck half way. didn't know about a quick boot....will look into that....was actually just trying to wait on the ncix weekly sale for a good psu.
Deal Addict
Feb 17, 2005
1072 posts
391 upvotes
nelsonmp5 wrote: Kinda happening to me too. I've got an Inspiron 531, sounds like the same setup. I booted into the dell recovery partition and ran the hd diagnostics, it said the hd is failing. Also got the occasional bsd. So i ended up getting another drive and I'm in the process of reinstalling my warez. Need to know if I swap sata channels will the new hd boot or do I have to use the win recovery console to put in a new BCD. I should have done that before re-installing, so now the faulty drive is the boot drive and the second drive with win installation isn't the "system" drive.
My system is a samsung 160gb, which I suspect yours is the same. You should have a 10gb recovery partition. My system date is Jan'08, maybe samsung drives have a short life.



i actually got rid of the 10gb dell partition when i installed win 7. but yeah, it's a dimension E521. i think yours is a slightly newer model than mine's. i originally had vista on mine's.

i checked the hard drive, the model is "ST316081 2AS"....googled it, seems to be a seagate drive...i didn't know dell used seagates?
Deal Addict
Feb 17, 2005
1072 posts
391 upvotes
Matrixvibe wrote: -Check PSU
-hd tune or some kind of diagnostic tool for hdd's to test
-download memtest and check ram


i'm trying hd tune. could use some help reading the test:

h t t p://img826.imageshack.us/img826/7844/captureatd.jpg

It has some dips, but not as bad to indicate a faulty drive. The error test didn't show any damaged sectors. any comments?thanks
Deal Addict
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Mar 31, 2004
1538 posts
41 upvotes
I had a similar issue with occasional freezing on windows load after BIOS and also BSOD crash about 5 minutes after booting into Windows. I thought it was due to my 520Watt PSU not being enough for my GTX460 1GB. So I got an 850Watt and I am still having the issue.

Any suggestions on how to check that the PSU is working to spec? My next step is to try reformatting. Sorry for the thread hijack, hope any advice will help the OP as well.
Deal Addict
Feb 17, 2005
1072 posts
391 upvotes
Newt wrote: I had a similar issue with occasional freezing on windows load after BIOS and also BSOD crash about 5 minutes after booting into Windows. I thought it was due to my 520Watt PSU not being enough for my GTX460 1GB. So I got an 850Watt and I am still having the issue.

Any suggestions on how to check that the PSU is working to spec? My next step is to try reformatting. Sorry for the thread hijack, hope any advice will help the OP as well.

that's ok....i don't get the BSOD....mine's simply freezes at windows initialization. i think to test the PSU, you need one of those multimeters thing....not sure if you can get at future shop, but from smaller comp shops like ncix, canada computers, anitec for sure....

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