PC having trouble on startup

Nodders · 25 Nov 2010 at 10:53

Hey folks . I thought I would ask here before I phone OC , it might cost less

Hope this is the right place for this , looked around and this seemed the best bet .

I bought a ready made set up in may from OC , on and off had a few bluscreens since then usually when comp is idling , more than I ever had on my last comp which is 5 years old . But thats not my main problem .

The main problem is on start up now and then , it seems to go through everything fine , everything looks good , then move to the icons to click and I get nothing , just moving the mouse over the icons they have the busy look . So I have to restart - hard reset or turn the whole machine off , after around 1 hour of this the night before last I gave up . Next morning it started okay .

Today it started again but was okay after 4 or 5 restarts , this time I started in safe mode , then was able to shutdown properly . On startup it was fine . This has happened on a couple of occasions in the past , but last couple of days have been the worst .

System is
"Ultima Viper" Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz @ 4.00GHz DDR3 System
with the
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024mb GDDR5 PCI-Express graphics card

I'm not tech savvy so please , bear with me .

Any answers would be greatly appreciated .

dave1983 · 25 Nov 2010 at 12:18

have you checked the CPU temps in your bios? but the busy icon could also mean something is running in the background.

so first things first go to bios check you CPU check shouldn't be higher than 50 degress, if all seems ok when window loads, do Ctrl - alt - del and check task manager see what if any programs have taken priority.

Nodders · 25 Nov 2010 at 14:23

dave1983 said:
have you checked the CPU temps in your bios? but the busy icon could also mean something is running in the background.

so first things first go to bios check you CPU check shouldn't be higher than 50 degress, if all seems ok when window loads, do Ctrl - alt - del and check task manager see what if any programs have taken priority.

I will have to check the bios , usually this is from a cold start first thing in the morning , after the day before , so I would'nt have thought the temp would be too high .

I cannot check task manager when this occurs either , nothing seems to work , icons are'nt clickable and you cant get task manager up .

I will have to wait for this to happen again to recheck but positive I cant do anything except try to restart .

Thanks .

mediaman · 25 Nov 2010 at 14:45

Not sure what OS you have but try clicking start and in the search window type msconfig. Select diagnostic startup. In the services tab select hide all microsoft services and ensure everything else is unchecked. Reboot and see if that works. If that improves things, repeat the process, select selective startup and start re-enabling services until you find the culprit. If this process shows up nothing you are probably looking at a hardware problem.

Nodders · 25 Nov 2010 at 15:53

mediaman said:
Not sure what OS you have but try clicking start and in the search window type msconfig. Select diagnostic startup. In the services tab select hide all microsoft services and ensure everything else is unchecked. Reboot and see if that works. If that improves things, repeat the process, select selective startup and start re-enabling services until you find the culprit. If this process shows up nothing you are probably looking at a hardware problem.

My OS is Windows 7

My only problem is , nothing is clickable so cant click the start button to have a go at that I'm afraid . And once the comp does start up properly then I won't be able to tell whats doing it .

Or is it I do that now , then keep rebooting and selecting more and more ?

Was hoping it was'nt a hardware problem with it being so new , but then it is selective start ups , very intermittent .

5 seconds after posting this I went back to youtube , something I had paused , unpaused then I get an error , screen went black and then it tells me an amd driver stopped working and has recovered . Lots of little niggly things I never got with a 5 year old computer , that's technology for ya

Oh and the only thing that has worried me since I bought it , is the cpu cooler thing , its huge , and the bottom part seems to be way lower than it should be , hangs below the fan , seems to be really heavy and pulling itself downward . But I suppose that must be the same for everyone .
My invoice calls it a Prolimatech Megahalems Rev B cpu cooler .

mediaman · 25 Nov 2010 at 16:27

Id put it on diagnostic startup when you are able to and keep it on that for a while, only load the bare minimum you need and try and replicate the problem. If say after a day or two you have no issues you can start selecting items to load at startup until you can rule everything out.

dave1983 · 25 Nov 2010 at 16:59

Does sound like a potential corruption with window install, do a clean re-install of windows, or if it's a new system advise OC of the error.

fk506 · 25 Nov 2010 at 17:45

Its either software or hardware. Try isolating it first. I agree it might be worth a reinstall, but I would also try running the processor at normal speed, with overclocked processors, one needs to remove that as a source of potential problems.

anything I don't mind · 25 Nov 2010 at 17:55

Sounds like you just need to remove some things from start up.

next time the pc is working
go to start run and type msconfig. Remove everything in the start up tab that is not required. You can actually disable everything in this tab and not have any problems. If you want to see if it is something in there causing a problem. Then untick everything, restart a few times and then you know it is just something in the start up that is causing problems.

Your problem could be malware or something similar, it does not sound hardware related.

Nodders · 27 Nov 2010 at 15:23

groen said:
Sounds like you just need to remove some things from start up.

next time the pc is working
go to start run and type msconfig. Remove everything in the start up tab that is not required. You can actually disable everything in this tab and not have any problems. If you want to see if it is something in there causing a problem. Then untick everything, restart a few times and then you know it is just something in the start up that is causing problems.

Your problem could be malware or something similar, it does not sound hardware related.

Heya , having a few problems with this .

First is this is intermittent , like it has'nt happened the last 2 days for instance , it's like that , it can go a couple weeks or more then start again , it can clear after the first day after umpteen tries at restarting etc .

With it being intermittent , I can go through the process above and lets say "xyy" is the fault , I tick it and this time it passes , so I know its not "xyy" but because of it's nature it could well be . I don't know if I'm making myself clear on that , I hope so .

A few things , I have had the comp since may , so would like to steer away from a fresh windows install if possible .
I have Mcaffe internet security running at all times .

Actually , once I thought it was my keyboard , a Razer tarantula . When this was happening a few months ago I unplugged the keyboard and everything started okay , alas that only worked the one time so I guess that was the time it was going to start okay anyway .

Bluescreens are a pain that would be another thing I would like sorting , I play say Diablo 10-12 year old game , crashes when I'm idling , not all the time .
Borderlands , had bluescreens playing this .
Minecraft , a super pixellated game in alpha stage ,had it 2 days bluescreened 5 times so far and gave it up as a bad job .

TBH I play very little atm but those things I do play I get blue screeens .

Oh , the new worms game on steam .... you guessed it , bluescreens .

I updated my Graphics card through steam a couple weeks ago so its up to date . Maybe it is the card ?

Anyway , rattled on a bit .

Maybe I should phone OC and see what they say .

Cheers

Nodders