Computer randomly doesn't load windows

Brumboy · 15 Oct 2011 at 17:49

Over the past few days my motherboard has been playing up. It stopped loading windows a few times so I had to do "power saving" mode on it via the BIOS (I have an Asus P8P67 board). Then I started putting it back to the OC settings I've had since January and it's working again, but every now and then it'll stop loading windows.

Also the computer generally feels a lot slower with everything, it's very sluggish and this is pretty annoying since it's an i5 2500k so it's not like it's a slow CPU.

Any idea's what to do?

1337_KR3W · 15 Oct 2011 at 17:54

Posts every time and then fails loading Windows?

I would try memtest to check RAM, check Windows event logs for any errors and swap SATA cable.

Brumboy · 15 Oct 2011 at 17:57

About half the time yeah, it used to load windows within 15 seconds or so but now it takes about a minute to load or it will just POST.

I already swapped the SATA cable last week so it can't be that.

Brumboy · 15 Oct 2011 at 18:06

Did a memory test and it failed within a few minutes!

Memtest:

) MemTest tells me "Memory error detected...", what does this mean?

This is not normal. Your RAM is bad, or your system is incorrectly configured. Even just 1 error means that you have a problem. If you have overclocked your machine, or selected aggressive RAM timings in your BIOS you should try more conservative settings before judging the RAM fully bad. If you can't get MemTest to run without errors even with conservative BIOS settings, however, your RAM is bad. Replace it, or you will experience stability and corruption problems. Correctly functioning RAM has no errors, even if you run MemTest for days.

Read the manual for more details on how to determine the exact cause of the problem.

I did change the RAM timings in the BIOS to 9-9-9-28 which I think is right, could that be the problem?

1337_KR3W · 15 Oct 2011 at 18:08

Have had a lot of similar problems with bad RAM or HDD, run memtest for a few cycles and you'll know very quickly if you've got a RAM problem, for HDD check your windows logs as there will be disk errors if you have a problem.

Could be an O/S problem but generally in my experience these don't cause intermittent startup problems, to be sure though you could boot an ubuntu cd or similar a few times and see if you have the same intermittent problems.

Brumboy · 15 Oct 2011 at 18:10

There doesn't seem to be any disk errors in windows events logs. I'm going to put the settings in the BIOS for memory timings to default and see if that solves anything.

1337_KR3W · 15 Oct 2011 at 18:10

Was typing while you posted, sorry.

If you've got several sticks take one out at a time until you find which you have a problem with.
Try accepting SPD timings, but if you want to be sure you could check manufacturers website for timing information or for many sticks they are printed on the labels.
Also check your RAM voltage, this again is usually on the sticker, if you're undervolting it you're more likely to run into problems.