Cant always access BIOS

toon_mad · 15 May 2009 at 23:50

Hi, sometimes i can have the pc on for a few hours with no problems, then say if i restart it to enter the bios to change a few settings, hitting del to access the bios causes the post screen to freeze - so i have to push the restart button.

also sometimes when i boot the pc, just to load windows as normal, it hangs on the verifying dmi pool stage. this problem i thought i solved a couple of weeks ago by changing hard drives, but the problem seems to be back again.

any suggestions to why the freezing?

JonJ678 · 15 May 2009 at 23:55

Is it stable? 3.7ghz is nothing mental, but it could easily be unstable at that speed.

spleenharvester · 16 May 2009 at 00:00

I used to get this a lot with my Asus M3A-770 - pressing the delete button a little late made it hang. I updated to beta BIOS 1102 and that fixed it.

toon_mad · 16 May 2009 at 00:49

Its Prime95 stable at 7hrs, havnt done it anymore as i dont ever have it turned on for more then 4 hours at a time (ive actually downclocked it to 3.6zghz)

im using the latest abit bios as far as im aware, abit have stopped support so im pretty sure there is no newer updates.

it couldnt be anything to do with usb or sata devices could it?

toon_mad · 17 May 2009 at 21:02

I think i found the problem, well i hope so anyway - This may come in handy for other people with similar problems

If i cold boot, i could access the bios or load windows usually first attempt, the problem was if ever i restarted the pc i could no longer get into the bios, or the dmi pool screen hanged. I had this problem a couple of weeks back, changing hard drives solved the problem at first. At that time i swapped out ram, run mem tests, booted with the basics ps2 keyboard, 1 stick ram, hard drive etc.

Well i never thought to do a simple thing, i have a usb extension thing, which takes up 1 usb slot, but allows 4 extra usb devices to be connected - it connects my xbox controller, dongle, bluetooth, printer etc etc. Having realised this earlier on, i decided to remove it, rebooted (not off a cold boot), pc booted instantly, tried again, instant boot.

Other symptons i have been experiencing is if say im moving large files, or burning a cd or something, i could not play music, well without it jumping constantly - this seems to be fixed.

So im hoping, and glad to say my abit motherboard is still ticking on strong, my best bargain motherboard off overclockers

So if anybody else experiences similar problems, try removing daft little devices like i had connected, it migh be the easiest thing you could do to get your pc to boot and access the bios.

Having said this, im going to try and get into the bios, and knowing my luck it will hang!

toon_mad · 17 May 2009 at 21:45

yes, it most defo was the usb adapter causing the hangs, i cant understand why, i was beginning to think it may be the sata dvd or something.

problem solved