Problem Booting and continual reboots with WinXP

[kiwitanker]

My computer won't boot properly, (ie full boot as opposed to selective boot) at all. if i try it gets to the loading of programs like zonealarm and then reboots. No warning. the HDD or something seems to make a distinct click at the same time. Booting into safemode works more often but in the last couple of times it has stopped and rebooted with a click as the list of drivers (dll's?) scrolls by. it seems to stop on the mso.dll one if that matters.
it doesn't stop all the time. When i do get into the pc it doesn't reboot if left to itself. it is instantaneous upon my doing something.
eg.
Clicking the deny allow use activeX dialog box in iexplorer.
Clicking c:\ in my computer.
clicking my computer icon


Knoppix (linux variant that boots from CD) seems to work and doesn't reboot spontaneously so far) which makes me beleive it isn't likely to be a hardware problem unless its the hdd.
There is a distinct click when it reboots from within windows and Knoppix did have an issue accessing the HHD although that was after i had been accesing it perfectly fine for over an hour. I was using knoppix to get stuff off my pc just in case a reinstall is needed.

My PC is

Win XP Home
Athlon 2000+
GA-7VAXP mobo
80gb HDD only 8% free its a seagate barracuda i think
512Mb pc2700 don't know what brand

Strangely the HDD does not list the manufacturer etc in the device tab like the CDrom cdrw drives do. they list as sanyo drives and list model numbers.
the HHD is listed just as ST380011A without manufacurer etc.

MBM Mother board monitor crashes the PC if i try to load it.
Sisoft Sandra complained "could not initilise driver " when i loaded it up to look at the HDD. It then loads okay.

on one reboot it complained of winlogon performing illegal intruction and windows had to reboot.

Ocassionally windows upon booting freezes and gives a blue screen. windows has stopped to prevent damage to your pc.

the error i got from one of these was


PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA



System restore had no effect.
MemTEST is over 800% no errors
Avast Antivirus says no viruses (with updated signiture files)



Whats wrong?

How do I fix it.

Is it hardware or dirver. I really don't want to reinstall if it means i lose the data on the HDD. If you relpy please be verbose and explain exactly what i should do.

[Aaron_J]

What kind of motherboard do you have?

[excuzzzeme]

Page fault error is usually indicative of memory going south....Just a thought .

[excuzzzeme]

ST380011A----probably a MAXTOR hdd, that's how Windows reports them most of the time

[kiwitanker]

gigabyte ga-7VAXP

[Aaron_J]

Go into the BIOS and set the front side bus to 100mhz instead of 133mhz. Leave the multiplier at 12.5 or default if thats where it is now.

Give this a try to see if it helps.

I only mention this because you described virtually the same symptoms my computer had a couple of days ago. I thought it was a hard disk because of the noise it made when it rebooted and the fact that it would most often reboot when I had something heavily accessing the hard drive.

Well, it wasn't the hard drive.

Anyway, the funny thing is, my computer has been happily running along at a 133mhz fsb for months. It's not like I just put it together. So don't let that throw you off.

BTW, our systems are almost identical. Different motherboards but the same chipset so it might as well be the same.

I still haven't figured out what to do about mine. I think the mobo is dying because the 3.3v reading runs about 3.1v with the FSB at 100mhz but it dips to ~2.7-2.6 with the FSB at 133mhz. Not good.

[kiwitanker]

I looked at your post and checked the voltage levels
the 3.3 volt rail fell from about 3.1 to 2.4 when i booted a few moments ago. I'm on another PC at the moment.

The voltage fell as i looked at it being registered in the bios starting at 3.1 and falling to 2.4 over about a minute. I guess as it warms up it get worse.

I take it this is a hardware error and not something that is supposed to happen and that it might well result in lots of crashing refusing to boot etc.


Is it more likely to be power supply or MOBO or something else?

[bailey]

you need a better power supply
enermax is a good one

[kiwitanker]

My PC worked for 10-11 months fine and just two days ago stopped working properly. Before hand for the last two or so weeks I have been getting intermitent memory cannot be written/read errors.

Power supply is 320W generic brand.

So does it sound like the power supply has failed to work properly.

If its hardware I'll take it back as it's under warrenty.

[Aaron_J]

My PC worked for 10-11 months fine and just two days ago stopped working properly

Before hand for the last two or so weeks I have been getting intermitent memory cannot be written/read errors

3.3 volt rail fell from about 3.1 to 2.4 when i booted a few moments ago.

This is exactly what mine is/was doing.

In my case, I know it isn't the power supply so I'm guessing the mobo is going south.



Edit: I know it isn't my power supply because I have a pinout diagram for the ATX connector. All the voltages 12, 5, and 3.3 are exactly as they should be within +/-5%