Member Avatar for LoganM

Hello. Having an issue with my computer hanging up and rebooting on startup. Ive noticed when its cold it will do this. When warmed up seems to act normal. If I unplug it and restart it will usually fire up with the usual "computer has been shut down suddenly.."goes through the disk check then starts.

I do get a message saying "Multiple bios attempts have failed..memory timings have been reset to automatic settings"
Have tested the memory with Memtest and everything was fine. Ran Adaware with no threats.

Could it be the video card?

D865Perl Motherboard

Any help is appreciated. Thanks

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  • 4 Years Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by BigPaw
Member Avatar for caperjack

try going into the bios and set the defaults settings ,f10 to save settings ,and reboot computer

Member Avatar for electromania

I'm not sure about this warm and cold thing.

But use the xp CD to repair the installation (if it reboots constantly)
Test you HDD and memory and if you can also the motherboard (there are admin tools you can d/l and use that to test your hardware).

Member Avatar for LoganM

I know it seems weird but true. Starting the computer for the first time in the AM it will not boot. If I shut down and restart 10 min later it will boot without problem. I ran memtest and ran through without issue. Do you have specific admin d/l's to use or specific ways to test hdd? Thanks.

Member Avatar for LoganM

I will try that. Also, I reinstalled WinXP on another harddrive and changed the video card. I still get the same hanging on start up..It will want to load then reboot doing this for about 5 min then it will boot. Ive checked the mem with Memtest and ran through with no problem. Could it be the battery or power supply? Totally stumped.

D865Perl Pentium 4 Mother Board if that helps

Member Avatar for kitguyy

I realize this is four years later :), but has there been a solution to this? I'm running into exactly the same issues as OP, with the same motherboard (coincidence?) and three RAM sticks installed. There were no recent hardware changes.

The part that baffles me is the "cold start" issue. I only run into this issue when I turn on the PC in the AM, which to me doesn't make a lot of sense. Once I see the "Multiple bios attempts have failed..memory timings have been reset to automatic settings" message (after several restarts) the OS starts up fine, and any subsequent restarts/startups work fine. In this state memtest runs with no issues, however if I run memtest in the first state (failure case) it crashes and causes a restart (same as OS).

My next step is to test with one RAM at a time, but it would nice to understand the issue better so I can reproduce it easier. Any help is appreciate it.

Member Avatar for BigPaw

Over a long period of time, due to heating and cooling within the PC, certain soldered components either in the PSU, the Motherboard, the video card, or the memory can fracture. You won't see this (and you should never open up your PSU) so finding the fractured soldered joint will be nearly impossible.

The symptoms of this problem results in one of two events. Either the computer will fail after it has warmed up, or it will not start until it has warmed up. You will need to follow a process of elimination to find the solution.

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