In the soup - tinkered with BIOS settings for no reason and now....

C

CASTLECASCADE

New Member
Hey guys....

I am not even sure why I did this. I was probably reading something online and decided to test it out.

What I did was...I went to BIOS> Integrated peripherals> SATA RAID/AHCI mode and "enabled" it (it was disabled). On restarting the computer, it looked like it was running some script (on a black screen) and the last line was "AHCI BIOS installed".

The same script ran everytime I restarted. So I went and disabled it.

Now everytime I restart, it gets stuck on a black screen (one of the initial screens with IRQs etc), with the last line being "ACPI Controller IRQ 9" (i dunno if this last line has any importance). I can get the computer to boot, however. For his I have to press F12 during boot up and manually select the correct hard drive (C drive). This I have to do every time in order to boot up.

How can I get out this?

Thanks guys.
 
Reset the CMOS. Take of the side panel, unplug the computer from power, look for a watch battery on the motherboard, take it out. with the power unplugged, push the power button to dishcarge the capacitors, leave the battery out fro about 10 mins.

then you put it back in, put the side panel back on, plug her in and boot up. you';; have to reconfigure your bios settings and any overclocks you made.
 
Hey bud.......now I am in a real fix. Let me explain what happened.

I followed your steps; took out cmos, pressed power button, put it back on after 10 mins and booted. Surely, it did recognize the resetting of CMOS, for the intial screen said "CMOS Checksum error Defaults loaded". It automatically restarted again and stopped again at the "now-all-too-familiar" ACPI controller IRQ 9.

Now it gets interesting.

As always, I tried to boot by F12 and manually selecting my "C" hard drive. This time the bootup process got stuck at the XP LOGO screen (the slider keeps moving left to right infinitely long at the logo screen...thats it). This process repeats on restart. Once again, if I don't press F12, it gets stuck at ACPI....
If I press F12 and start bootup, it gets stuck at the XP LOGO screen.

Now...i went to the BIOS settings and did something I had totally missed before. I changed the priority of my "C" hard drive to #1 by page up button (i hadn't noticed this option before, which is why i never tried it). And on restarting....VIOLA.........I found that I don't need to press F12 again, it boots up normall.......................BUT only up to the point of the XP LOGO screen.

So basically, I solved my initial problem by a simple BIOS setting change; but by way of trying several things, specificly resetting the CMOS, I am in to a bigger (?) problem now.

Let me also mention that I formatted and resinstalled (not exactly; i have several perfect working backups of my hard drive; i restored them = same as format+resintall) XP a couple of times. Even then (this usually resolves all my problems), the system always gets stuck at the XP LOGO screen.

One more point: The system boots NORMALLY in safe mode. No getting stuck at the xp logo in safe mode. So what can we conclude? And what can we do? What else is there to try once CMOS resetting and formatting both fail?

HELPPPPPPPPP :eek:



My BIOS settings
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/6131/dsc02675m.jpg

http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/9420/dsc02676r.jpg
(The simple bios setting change that solved my initial problem was done with the 1st option in this pic)

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/3695/dsc02677sb.jpg
(the whole problem began when I enabled the 1st option in this pic)

http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/8729/dsc02678h.jpg

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4924/dsc02679.jpg
 
Last edited:
I'm waiting for the pics to load (slow internet)

Have tried loading the fail safe defaults in the BIOS?

EDIT: In CPU configuration, you have virtualisation enabled. as far as i know the E5300 doesn't support that. try turning it off. also try turning EIST, Thermal Monitor 2, and Enhanced Halt State (C1E) off.
 
Last edited:
oh, you are there....

Yes sir......i tried that (both fail safe and optimized defaults).

I have added something to my above (loooong) post about SAFE MODE.

(my system is still at the XP screen for the last 20 mins)
 
hmm...

You have a few hard drives there. try unplugging them and keeping only the one with your O/S on it.

you using SATA or IDE drives?
 
hey man...i know its 5pm there.

I got to sleep soon...its past 1am (toronto). :(

But please do tell me what i need to try other than connecting just the C drive (and maybe adding 1 drive at a time?). I will try all that and post back tomorrow.
 
Last edited:
okay then, master/slave shouldn't be a problem.

If you can boot into safemode, access the msconfig utility. (start > run > msconfig) and you should start in the 'general' tab. there should be 3 check boxes, for normal startup, diagnostic startup and selective startup.

Try using diagnostic startup. While you're in msconfig, go to the boot tab. select advanced options, check the box next to the NUMPROC option. this controls the amout of processors (cores) windows will use to boot. once you check the box it should default to two (faster booting times :) ). hit apply, and restart.

See if that does anything.
 
bud....this is what happened

The default core option was 1; i changed to 2 (plus did everything you said) and restarted;

only 1 change this time.......it got to the XP LOGO screen, flashed a blue screen for a microsecond and rebooted automatically; and then, its back to the old story.......getting stuck at the XP LOGO screen

(my system is quad core)
 
CASTLECASCADE said:
bud....this is what happened

The default core option was 1; i changed to 2 (plus did everything you said) and restarted;

only 1 change this time.......it got to the XP LOGO screen, flashed a blue screen for a microsecond and rebooted automatically; and then, its back to the old story.......getting stuck at the XP LOGO screen

(my system is quad core)
Click to expand...

Well, you have a quadcore, you should set it to 4. I think you should try installing windows on another drive (from CD)

I can't think of much more to do. if you saw a bluescreen, even for a second, try and find the memory dump file it created. ( i think they are in C:\Windows\Minidump)
 
There was no file in minidump (show hidden files, operating system files....even then).

By setting core to 4....on restarting, the only difference was the sliding (from left to right) bars at the XP LOGO screen got STUCK instead of sliding. And on further restart, back to the old XP LOGO screen with sliding bars!

Your idea of testing each hard drive by itself sounds a little promising (maybe form my previous experience with this system). So I will try that, will try installing o/s in another drive etc and post back TOMORROW.

Thanks a lot mate.

(and of course, since this problem started after removing the CMOS battery, doing that again might be another option; right? later)
 
Yeah, try the battery again. this time leave it out and unplugged for an hour. push the power button multiple times. just to make sure. :)

Lets see if we can get to the bottom of this.
 
My hypothesis is that the BIOS once contained settings which are no longer applicable to the Windows installation and now the absence of the expected features prevents Windows from loading. I suspected therefore, that a new installation of Windows is your best chance.
 
I agree. Try loading windows onto another drive, or as an alternative, boot into safe mode and use device manager to uninstall everything in there. then reboot and see if normal mode works. you'll have to reinstall all your drivers later.
 
Sorry for the late reply guys.

So this is what happened.

I was able to boot on normal mode, after "quick flashing" with the latest version of my BIOS. Everything seemed okay.

But now, it is a different (more worrying?) problem.

When I click "restart", the computer SHUTS DOWN, instead of restarting. Then I need to manually click the START UP or RESTART button for the system to start. This is not an occasional happening. Happens every single time I press "restart". Is this because my BIOS got messed up (the quick flashing process went pretty smooth)?

Other than that, I don't see any problems after system boots. It works normally.

**important edit**

I just noticed that the computer doesn't EXACTLY shut down when I press "restart"; it follows the "shutting down" routine and then the monitor just shuts off (no more signal to the monitor) and the hard disk light also shuts off. But I could still hear inside the computer (i knew that the computer hasn't shut off). Just to be sure, I tried pressing the shut down button during this condition, and the computer DID shut down; which means the computer doesn't exactly shut down when I press "restart".
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top