[Solved] Freezing at post screen

[Subbleton]

Hi, recently built a new system and all went well for 4 months till I experienced a few random restarts at post screen. Never got round to chasing the problem and then today rebooted for win updates and my computer freezes as soon as the post screen appears. Keyboard not active or am unable to access bios at all. Any help welcome, thanks.

 

System as follows:

Gigabyte ga-p67a-ud3p

I7 3ghz quad

4gb corsair ddr3 ram

Sapphire toxic 6870

600w psu

 

No component is older than 4months and can't see any physical problems.

 

Ps sorry if badly formatted I'm posting from my phone :(

[Plastic Nev]

Hi and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help,

does the motherboard have the little post beep speaker fitted, if so any beeps?

It sounds at face value like the BIOS isn't even starting up otherwise.

Nev.

[Subbleton]

Ty for the welcome and reply, yes the mobo has a speaker and most of the times I've tried turning on I've had no beeps. Sometimes it reboots instead of freezing and then I get a single short beep.

When I turn on the hd, fans, CPU and cd drive all fire up fine but at the post screen where it normally shows "loading operating system" then starts windows it locks up

[Jelly Bean]

When you say it freezes at post screen,at what point does it freeze?

 

On CPU or RAM or something else?

 

The first idea is to reset BIOS....Use the BIOS reset jumper on the mainboard then try a restart....

 

Then if that dont get you up and running this could be a bit of hardware......chkdsk on the hard drive maybe a choice to start checking things....

 

Disconnecting all hardware not required for boot such as HDD,CD.DVD rom drive,floppy disk.....

 

Reboot,do you get the freeze or any other issues?

 

Attach one peice of hardware reboot do you get an issue?

 

Process of elimination is a start.....

[Subbleton]

Hi jelly bean and thanks formthe help.

 

To answer your questions it freezes immediately upon post screen appearing so I am unable to access bios ect. via keyboard.

 

Haven't tried resetting bios yet- I electrocuted myself as a kid and am paranoid about fiddling with anything electric now :) but if it's not healed miraculously by tonight I'll get out the rubber gloves and wellies and have a go.

 

Tried removing all hd's and cd drive- no difference, although when I tried this morn I did get it to boot from cd with no hd's in but could only manage this once with repeated attempts simply freezing at post again.

As for trial and error on hardware I will give it a shot too but haven't changed the configuration at all since I built the system so this shouldn't be the problem should it?

 

Again sorry if not clear but other than knowing the functions of the components I'm rather at sea here.

Thanks again for all help

[Jelly Bean]

External hardware can be an issue,if you have any external hardware such as a printer,external hard drive,web cam ect,unplug them all...Only have your keyboard n mouse connected,now reboot the computer......I asume you have tried this already.....

 

You dont need the rubber gloves.....Nore the wellies....

 

Power off the computer,remove from power outlet on the wall.....Open her up and touch the power supply for a few seconds.....This should eliminate static......Locate the reset jumper on the mainboard usaly by the BIOS battery and remove and place on the two empty pins,count 10 and replace onto the two origonal pins,reboot....

 

If your using a wireless keyboard and mouse I sugest until we can resolve your issues switch to a PS/2 keyboard and mouse,....

 

Then are you able to enter BIOS and check the time and date is correct?

 

Wrong time and date can stop a computer from booting....

 

 

 

Have you tried the one stick of RAM in at a time?

 

This may not be hardware but as Nev said it just is not starting up,have you ever updated the BIOS?

[Subbleton]

The gloves and wellies was tounge in cheek sorry :)

 

Yes tried with all external hardware disconnected- same result.

It's a wired USB keyboard. Will grab an old ps/2 later on the week if this isn't resolved by then and try that but as the keyboard is lighting up it is getting a feed from the pc.

 

Hadnt thought to try only the one ram stick - again will give it a shot tonight.

 

Other than first time booting (4 months ago) I havn't touched the bios but did get the latest version then and all drivers ect are up to date as of last weekend.

 

Thanks for the continued help.

Will be trying all suggestions when I'm home his eve and then post a full report either begging for more help or thanking you for the solution

[Jelly Bean]

I know the wellies n gloves were a joke....

 

;)

 

Test each RAM stick individualy.....

[Subbleton]

Ok so when I got home from work I went for one more try with all internal hardware still connected and it initially rebooted when the post screen first appeared but the started up fine.

Now im really confused but reluctant to turn it off just yet to try and source the problem.

 

That said I'd still like to find out what is causing the problem so I'm open to suggestions that don't require a reboot just yet

[Plastic Nev]

Hum, a classic wrong if you do and wrong if you don't situation.

The only way forwards really is to try a reboot, if it fails, then we are back to disconnecting hardware, and or removing all but one RAM stick as previously suggested.

If on the other hand it reboots just fine, then whatever it was has righted itself, and at this point with no idea what it was.

 

Nev.

[Jelly Bean]

Personaly I would also test a diffrent PSU.......

[Subbleton]

Just wanted to say a big thank you to the members that gave up their time to help me.

 

After following your advice I tested each and every component and peripheral one by one and was unable to lacate the problem.

Deciding to chin it off I went to visit the folks for the weekend and have another bash tonight.

 

After 5 mins head scratching I think I have found my answer- the IR cable running to the monitor to activate the usb ports seemed to be stopping it booting. Pulled cable while installing a sound card I scavenged from my folks and when done booted first time.

I've now tried 4 successful reboots and no dramas so as mentioned right at the start the problem appears to be the external hardware.

 

Big thanks to all who helped me out

[Jelly Bean]

Excellent,thankyou for getting back to us...