Computer locks up at windows loading screen

wildman_33 · 24 Feb 2014 at 09:47

Last week I decided to move my sound card from my PCI-e x1 slot to my PCI-e x4 slot as I was getting interference from one of my graphics cards. Sure enough moving it fixed my interference issues but the computer was having problems booting up where it would get to the black screen where it says windows and before the spinning balls came up it would lock up (windows 7). I tried reinstalling the drivers in safe mode and this didn't really help.

I decided to leave it as I was going to reformat it this week and it booted anyway if I reset it.

Anyway, last night I went to switch it on and it got stuck as usual so I reset it, it still didn't boot, tried again and again, nothing, it was getting stuck at the windows screen every time. Tried safe mode and I just got a black screen, tried the recovery thing and it just gets stuck at the end of the moving bar.

I then though ok ill reformat now and put in my windows disk, the white bar moved across fine and it then went to the windows spinning ball things and got stuck again, I can't get past this point.

I have been in to my bios and checked all my drives are appearing and the ram is tested on boot an seems fine, I have checked all the connections and they seem fine. I have tried a CMOS reset and still no luck.

I am now at a bit of a loss as what to do next, I may try plugging my SSD in to another computer today and doing a secure erase on it and then trying again. Any ideas what the problem may be?

My system specs are:

Intel Core i7 3770k (Stock)
Asus Sabertooth Z77
16gb Samsung Green (1600mhz)
2x GTX660 SLI
Asus Xonar DGX
OCZ Vertex 3 120gb (boot)
OCZ Vertex 2 480gb (games)
WD Blue 640gb (storage)
XFX 650w PSU
Corsair H100 Cooler
Windows 7 Professional x64

Edit: I have also tried removing the sound card and still nothing. The internal sound card is disabled in the bios.

Edit2: I have now tried removing all the stick of ram apart form one, still nothing, swapped in another stick and still nothing, have also tried putting the sound card back in its original slot and nothing with that either.

Edit3: I have now taken out both Gpus and tried booting on integrated graphics, still nothing.

wildman_33 · 24 Feb 2014 at 13:01

Ive always secure erased rather than formatted my SSDs as I was under the impression this is what you do with them (using the secure erase in the OCZ toolbox). I have rules out the SSD now as I tried booting to the windows CD with just the CD drive connected and it still hangs on boot. I literally just have the CD drive, one stick of ram and the cpu and psu plugged in now (obviously with fans etc as well).

wildman_33 · 24 Feb 2014 at 15:44

The Cpu temperatures seem fine from the bios, I've reinstalled windows now, it seems to sit for a very long time on the starting windows screen now but eventually loads, it seems to be struggling to find one of my graphics cards too now.

Edit: graphics card sorted after rebooting again, still sits on starting windows for ages though

wildman_33 · 24 Feb 2014 at 16:16

Right sorted it, can't believe the solution was so simple. Basically after a reformat and installing all the driver it was still playing up. I was at a loose end was looking around on google where I found a page saying sometimes usb devices such as printers slow down the boot up. I switched off my printer and sure enough it booted up instantly.

I really can't understand why it suddenly started doing this as it never did in the past but at least now it seems to be fixed. Ill have a look at disabling some things in the bios anyway to see if I can get ti to boot quickly with the printer on.

I haven't put the sound card back in yet, that will be the next challenge as I'm sure it will mess things up again.

Thanks for the input anyway guys.

wildman_33 · 24 Feb 2014 at 16:19

implosiveturnip said:
Put soundcard in the third full size PCi-e slot, and set lane width to auto in bios.

I think ill do that before I put the sound card back in.

wildman_33 · 25 Feb 2014 at 10:01

Haha yeah I really couldn't be bothered with pulling it out from under my desk and I was sure it was the sound card until I removed it. Now I think about it it will most likely me that I plugged the printer in to another usb port after moving the sound card last week.