Pretty big problems here. (BIOS, etc) - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

-Ever- · 06-02-2005, 10:52 AM

I'll start with what's happening, followed by my personal diagnosis and list of when/how these problems are occuring.

I've got two problems:

1) There's something screwy with my BIOS. If I restart my computer, I have a very slim chance to make it past the BIOS and into Windows.

2) An online video game I play has begun randomly locking my computer up, forcing me to restart and get stuck within the previous BIOS problem.

So here's what's going on in real time and some important information to consider. I reformatted my HD and reinstalled XP yesterday. Everything went smoothly as I do this about twice a year and spent a day backing everything up on an external drive. I got into windows right after I reformatted, I changed all my settings to how I like them (desktop, etc), then began loading backed-up files such as pictures and music. After this, I restarted a few times to make sure everything was happy and running smoothly. There was one time that I got stuck at the BIOS logo screen but it moved after about 20 seconds. The only things I changed system-wise would be new drivers for my video card (Radeon) and I installed audio drivers from my mobo's CD. After this, I began going about my usual business, checking to make sure the internet worked and installed this video game (world of warcraft). I should add that I was immediately getting adware when I first restarted which I found as very odd. I posted on this forum about it and found that by disabling Messanger in Run-->Services.msc, they went away. I don't think this has a negative effect though on what I've been describing.

All was smooth and good. I played my game for about an hour and a half that night. I closed it, had dinner, came back, and played it for about 15 minutes when it locked up. I was forced to restart and I got stuck in BIOS. I shut down for 5 minutes, came back, got back into windows and restarted the game figuring that systems usually hiccup the first few days. The same thing happened but I was getting stuck at this screen longer and longer. I'm getting the "No BIOS Installed!" message which usually has to do with disabling Raid stuff (which I did). Also, things are kind of tweaky with it recognizing my HD and such. I did things such as reset the entire MOBO by removing the battery, I set the BIOS to default settings via the option, and changed things to how they should be. Still no luck.

I'm confused here because I'm at a fundamental root of the computer system and am still being beat. You can't go much further than reformatting, reloading a system software, restarting a MOBO, and setting BIOS to default and still have problems to face.

I figure the game crashing is a driver problem since I downloaded newer ones than I had before the reinstall, but it, paired with the BIOS problem, paired with the fact that Windows runs flawlessly when I make it through POST is really confusing me.

Any ideas? I've unleashed all of my tricks. Do you have any I should look into?
I appreciate any help. I'd hate to have to take this guy into a local shop if I could steer clear.

Thanks for any info guys.
-T

PS: I just remembered that one thing I'm yet to do is install the newest service pack. Just wanted to throw that in here..

PS: The first time I booted this morning everything went smoothly, like it did yesterday when I'd let the computer rest. I figured it was because I let it rest overnight, but while installing SP2 it reset itself and everything went smooth again. However on the third reboot when SP2 had finished, it locked again. I was determined to get it back up so I restarted the computer about five times. It kept on locking just after POST (the screen would freeze after it listed the ram and primary's/slave's) and it finally made it through on the fifth restart. I'm definitely going to go ahead and download the newest BIOS in the mean time.

Ripsaw · 06-02-2005, 11:14 AM

Hmm. How old is the motherboard? Could be a dead or dying battery. Did you remove the battery, and replace it with a new one? Also, try to rollback to a previous, non-screwey version of your video drivers.

cyrnel · 06-02-2005, 12:06 PM

-Ever-, did you chang IDE devices? Sounds like you have the wrong jumper settings. What drives are connected (make, model number), to which IDE channel, and how are the jumpers set?

This can cause all kinds of problems, including the auto-detect problems you describe.

Forget about Messenger. It's a one-way spam assistant, and can't actually affect anything besides your patience. Once it's off, it's off.

-Ever- · 06-02-2005, 01:27 PM

Thanks for the info Cyrnel. However I didn't change any hardware while reformatting. This is why I don't think it could be something like faulty drives, memory, motherboard, or cables because I never opened my case while doing all of this.

Thanks again guys
-Tim

cyrnel · 06-02-2005, 02:15 PM

It never had this problem before? Your description of the behavior sounds as if it's having trouble auto-detecting. What happens when you tell the BIOS to auto-detect drives? (try several times) Same big pauses?

New drivers wouldn't cause this (they aren't active yet), but bad geometry settings, cabling (including power), jumpers, dying component, or a flaky battery (as Ripsaw suggested) could. The erratic nature really points to something wrong at the hardware layer. Unless I'm misunderstanding your description, of course. San Diego? Impact damage from your house sliding down a hill recently?

What orginally motivated you to do anything in the BIOS? RAID? Do you remember all the changes you made?

May as well go for the gusto. What mobo brand/model & BIOS revision? I'm tempted to ask you to enumerate all storage devices, plain IDE, SATA, SCSI, whatever, but then you'd think I was stubborn.

-Ever- · 06-02-2005, 03:13 PM

Heh thanks again Cyrnel

Lets see what I can answer. Nope, my computer has been very stable lately before the redo. I do notice though that the bios isn't auto-detecting my CD and DVD drives so this is definitely something to look into. Also, it took a while to detect my one SATA Seagate harddrive (about 5 months old). I think this is why I first fiddled around in BIOS. Like you said, I had to select auto a few times for it to recognize and now it does.

I don't recall every change I made to the BIOS, but I think they included making sure drives were set to auto, that SATA was selected instead of PATA, and to turn of legacy and raid related things. I also turned off the mobo logo so I could review the post

The mobo model is MSI's 865PE Neo2 version-1. I have one internal storage device, the Seagate, which has worked very well since I bought it. I have two externals working, including an older firewire 30gig Maxtor and a new USB 2.0 Maxtor 80gig. I unattached them before reformatting.

I went ahead and used the old video driver I had saved through the reboot and now the game is running correctly (so far). I went ahead and installed SP2 and that worked well too. The only thing that's goofy as of now is the freezing after POST finishes and the fact that it eventually makes it past if I restart the computer about two to five times.

Thanks again bud

Take care
-Tim

cyrnel · 06-03-2005, 09:18 AM

On the optical drive problem: Egad. I can't say why this just arrived but I'd get it out of the picture before moving forward.

Easy test. Pull the optical IDE cable(s) from the mobo and see if booting improves. (assuming BIOS set to autodetect) If it's better, hit the drives with a hammer until they behave...

What exactly are the drives? Master, slave, at end or middle of cable? Anything else at all on the cables?... the usual stuff.

Bad magic like this is usually caused by an IDE device being jumpered wrong or just not releasing the select line. When you hear people complain about problems using multiple opticals it's often that one or both of the opticals aren't quite right in the head.

-Ever- · 06-03-2005, 06:57 PM

Is SATA optical? Because if not, I'm not running any optical as of now (to my knowledge!)

Everything has been running well so far. I'm still not recognizing my CD drives but I haven't had time to mess with it as of late. Hopefully I'll get back to it asap while I've got your attention!

Thanks again Cyrnel

-Tim

SiN · 06-04-2005, 03:38 AM

optical drive = something with a laser.

cd/dvd/etc.

/exits since she's got nothing more to add unfortunately.

good luck!

Bamrak · 06-04-2005, 05:41 AM

I may be way off as it does sound moe like a drive issue... Have you checked the temp of your processor? you say you locked up while playing warcraft and after you installed/restored backed up files but when you let it set over night it worked.

The only big difference between turning your computer off for 5 minutes and 5 hours is component temperatures. It could be one of your drives, CPU temp, power supply, etc.

-Ever- · 06-06-2005, 11:47 AM

Ok so I'm back guys. Everything has been running ok so far. I still get stuck at BIOS but I can make it past if I reset my computer a few times. Beyond this, I'm still not showing both my CD and DVD drives in BIOS as well as in Windows-->My Computer. I selected auto a few times and still didn't get anything. This is odd because I didn't touch the inside of my computer while reformatting so I have no idea why they aren't showing up now.

Thanks for any tips! Take care
-Tim

Bamrak · 06-06-2005, 12:32 PM

you might wanna get a multimeter and check out the power supply, it may not be carrying enough juice. I've had similar symptoms as I've had to reboot several times for it to make it past POST. The power supply was pushing barely enough to start the PC, but not enough to make any of the components work. if not, it could be something going on the motherboard as well.

06-02-2005, 10:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
-Ever- Junkie Location: San Francisco	Pretty big problems here. (BIOS, etc) I'll start with what's happening, followed by my personal diagnosis and list of when/how these problems are occuring. I've got two problems: 1) There's something screwy with my BIOS. If I restart my computer, I have a very slim chance to make it past the BIOS and into Windows. 2) An online video game I play has begun randomly locking my computer up, forcing me to restart and get stuck within the previous BIOS problem. So here's what's going on in real time and some important information to consider. I reformatted my HD and reinstalled XP yesterday. Everything went smoothly as I do this about twice a year and spent a day backing everything up on an external drive. I got into windows right after I reformatted, I changed all my settings to how I like them (desktop, etc), then began loading backed-up files such as pictures and music. After this, I restarted a few times to make sure everything was happy and running smoothly. There was one time that I got stuck at the BIOS logo screen but it moved after about 20 seconds. The only things I changed system-wise would be new drivers for my video card (Radeon) and I installed audio drivers from my mobo's CD. After this, I began going about my usual business, checking to make sure the internet worked and installed this video game (world of warcraft). I should add that I was immediately getting adware when I first restarted which I found as very odd. I posted on this forum about it and found that by disabling Messanger in Run-->Services.msc, they went away. I don't think this has a negative effect though on what I've been describing. All was smooth and good. I played my game for about an hour and a half that night. I closed it, had dinner, came back, and played it for about 15 minutes when it locked up. I was forced to restart and I got stuck in BIOS. I shut down for 5 minutes, came back, got back into windows and restarted the game figuring that systems usually hiccup the first few days. The same thing happened but I was getting stuck at this screen longer and longer. I'm getting the "No BIOS Installed!" message which usually has to do with disabling Raid stuff (which I did). Also, things are kind of tweaky with it recognizing my HD and such. I did things such as reset the entire MOBO by removing the battery, I set the BIOS to default settings via the option, and changed things to how they should be. Still no luck. I'm confused here because I'm at a fundamental root of the computer system and am still being beat. You can't go much further than reformatting, reloading a system software, restarting a MOBO, and setting BIOS to default and still have problems to face. I figure the game crashing is a driver problem since I downloaded newer ones than I had before the reinstall, but it, paired with the BIOS problem, paired with the fact that Windows runs flawlessly when I make it through POST is really confusing me. Any ideas? I've unleashed all of my tricks. Do you have any I should look into? I appreciate any help. I'd hate to have to take this guy into a local shop if I could steer clear. Thanks for any info guys. -T PS: I just remembered that one thing I'm yet to do is install the newest service pack. Just wanted to throw that in here.. PS: The first time I booted this morning everything went smoothly, like it did yesterday when I'd let the computer rest. I figured it was because I let it rest overnight, but while installing SP2 it reset itself and everything went smooth again. However on the third reboot when SP2 had finished, it locked again. I was determined to get it back up so I restarted the computer about five times. It kept on locking just after POST (the screen would freeze after it listed the ram and primary's/slave's) and it finally made it through on the fifth restart. I'm definitely going to go ahead and download the newest BIOS in the mean time. __________________ Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home And experience of this place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster... --Acknowledge your weaknesses-- Last edited by -Ever-; 06-02-2005 at 11:38 AM..

06-02-2005, 11:14 AM	#2 (permalink)
Ripsaw Chef in Training	Hmm. How old is the motherboard? Could be a dead or dying battery. Did you remove the battery, and replace it with a new one? Also, try to rollback to a previous, non-screwey version of your video drivers. __________________ "We are supposed to be masters of space, but we cant even line up our shoes?" One life, one chance, one opportunity.

06-02-2005, 12:06 PM	#3 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	-Ever-, did you chang IDE devices? Sounds like you have the wrong jumper settings. What drives are connected (make, model number), to which IDE channel, and how are the jumpers set? This can cause all kinds of problems, including the auto-detect problems you describe. Forget about Messenger. It's a one-way spam assistant, and can't actually affect anything besides your patience. Once it's off, it's off. __________________ There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

06-02-2005, 01:27 PM	#4 (permalink)
-Ever- Junkie Location: San Francisco	Thanks for the info Cyrnel. However I didn't change any hardware while reformatting. This is why I don't think it could be something like faulty drives, memory, motherboard, or cables because I never opened my case while doing all of this. Thanks again guys -Tim __________________ Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home And experience of this place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster... --Acknowledge your weaknesses--

06-02-2005, 02:15 PM	#5 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	It never had this problem before? Your description of the behavior sounds as if it's having trouble auto-detecting. What happens when you tell the BIOS to auto-detect drives? (try several times) Same big pauses? New drivers wouldn't cause this (they aren't active yet), but bad geometry settings, cabling (including power), jumpers, dying component, or a flaky battery (as Ripsaw suggested) could. The erratic nature really points to something wrong at the hardware layer. Unless I'm misunderstanding your description, of course. San Diego? Impact damage from your house sliding down a hill recently? What orginally motivated you to do anything in the BIOS? RAID? Do you remember all the changes you made? May as well go for the gusto. What mobo brand/model & BIOS revision? I'm tempted to ask you to enumerate all storage devices, plain IDE, SATA, SCSI, whatever, but then you'd think I was stubborn. __________________ There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

06-02-2005, 03:13 PM	#6 (permalink)
-Ever- Junkie Location: San Francisco	Heh thanks again Cyrnel Lets see what I can answer. Nope, my computer has been very stable lately before the redo. I do notice though that the bios isn't auto-detecting my CD and DVD drives so this is definitely something to look into. Also, it took a while to detect my one SATA Seagate harddrive (about 5 months old). I think this is why I first fiddled around in BIOS. Like you said, I had to select auto a few times for it to recognize and now it does. I don't recall every change I made to the BIOS, but I think they included making sure drives were set to auto, that SATA was selected instead of PATA, and to turn of legacy and raid related things. I also turned off the mobo logo so I could review the post The mobo model is MSI's 865PE Neo2 version-1. I have one internal storage device, the Seagate, which has worked very well since I bought it. I have two externals working, including an older firewire 30gig Maxtor and a new USB 2.0 Maxtor 80gig. I unattached them before reformatting. I went ahead and used the old video driver I had saved through the reboot and now the game is running correctly (so far). I went ahead and installed SP2 and that worked well too. The only thing that's goofy as of now is the freezing after POST finishes and the fact that it eventually makes it past if I restart the computer about two to five times. Thanks again bud Take care -Tim __________________ Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home And experience of this place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster... --Acknowledge your weaknesses--

06-03-2005, 09:18 AM	#7 (permalink)
cyrnel Adequate Location: In my angry-dome.	On the optical drive problem: Egad. I can't say why this just arrived but I'd get it out of the picture before moving forward. Easy test. Pull the optical IDE cable(s) from the mobo and see if booting improves. (assuming BIOS set to autodetect) If it's better, hit the drives with a hammer until they behave... What exactly are the drives? Master, slave, at end or middle of cable? Anything else at all on the cables?... the usual stuff. Bad magic like this is usually caused by an IDE device being jumpered wrong or just not releasing the select line. When you hear people complain about problems using multiple opticals it's often that one or both of the opticals aren't quite right in the head. __________________ There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

06-03-2005, 06:57 PM	#8 (permalink)
-Ever- Junkie Location: San Francisco	Is SATA optical? Because if not, I'm not running any optical as of now (to my knowledge!) Everything has been running well so far. I'm still not recognizing my CD drives but I haven't had time to mess with it as of late. Hopefully I'll get back to it asap while I've got your attention! Thanks again Cyrnel -Tim __________________ Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home And experience of this place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster... --Acknowledge your weaknesses--

06-04-2005, 03:38 AM	#9 (permalink)
SiN strangelove Location: ...more here than there...	optical drive = something with a laser. cd/dvd/etc. /exits since she's got nothing more to add unfortunately. good luck! __________________ - + - ° GiRLie GeeK ° - + - ° 01110010011011110110111101110100001000000110110101100101 Therell be days/When Ill stray/I may appear to be/Constantly out of reach/I give in to sin/Because I like to practise what I preach

06-04-2005, 05:41 AM	#10 (permalink)
Bamrak Enter Title Here Location: Tennessee	I may be way off as it does sound moe like a drive issue... Have you checked the temp of your processor? you say you locked up while playing warcraft and after you installed/restored backed up files but when you let it set over night it worked. The only big difference between turning your computer off for 5 minutes and 5 hours is component temperatures. It could be one of your drives, CPU temp, power supply, etc.

06-06-2005, 11:47 AM	#11 (permalink)
-Ever- Junkie Location: San Francisco	Ok so I'm back guys. Everything has been running ok so far. I still get stuck at BIOS but I can make it past if I reset my computer a few times. Beyond this, I'm still not showing both my CD and DVD drives in BIOS as well as in Windows-->My Computer. I selected auto a few times and still didn't get anything. This is odd because I didn't touch the inside of my computer while reformatting so I have no idea why they aren't showing up now. Thanks for any tips! Take care -Tim __________________ Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home And experience of this place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster... --Acknowledge your weaknesses--

06-06-2005, 12:32 PM	#12 (permalink)
Bamrak Enter Title Here Location: Tennessee	you might wanna get a multimeter and check out the power supply, it may not be carrying enough juice. I've had similar symptoms as I've had to reboot several times for it to make it past POST. The power supply was pushing barely enough to start the PC, but not enough to make any of the components work. if not, it could be something going on the motherboard as well.