E-Machines PC won't boot after 2 week holiday

[SoulfulScotsman]

Hi all,

 

So I returned from a 2 week holiday this morning, and after a few hours kip tried to boot up my PC. Bear with me, as I was still a bit tired so some of exactly what happened was a bit hazy!

 

Basically, the first error was "Checksum error - Defaults loaded". (The CMOS battery is fairly new but it may well need replaced). I hit F1 to continue, and Windows started to load normally.

 

Shortly after it was loading up my profile, I got the blue screen of death. The ultimate error was a problem with "ialmrnt5", with the PC getting into a constant loop, and performing a dump of physical memory.

 

I've tried to reboot a few more times since then, and had a succession of beeps and error messages, or something other than the PC starting up, fan spinning etc, nothing on the monitor and no hard drive action.

 

I've also just tried to load in Safe Mode, and it instantly gave me what looks like a list of registry entries (all starting with "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\System32) and a constant hard-drive activity light.

 

Now, I've had this happen before with the same PC about 3 years ago, again after it hadn't been used for a period of around 2 weeks. How can that be? For the life of me, I can't remember what I did to resolve it last time. I think I may have given in and just reformatted.

 

Don't want to do that this time though - far too much stuff on there that I can't afford to lose, so I would really appreciate if someone can tell me some of the things I should be checking to try and resolve this. How common is it for a PC to play up after a period of inactivity, and why?!

 

Thanks in advance guys,

 

Stephen H

[SoulfulScotsman]

PC won't boot up after 2 week holiday

 

Hi all,

 

So I returned from a 2 week holiday this morning, and after a few hours kip tried to boot up my PC. Bear with me, as I was still a bit tired so some of exactly what happened was a bit hazy!

 

Basically, the first error was "Checksum error - Defaults loaded". (The CMOS battery is fairly new but it may well need replaced). I hit F1 to continue, and Windows started to load normally.

 

Shortly after it was loading up my profile, I got the blue screen of death. The ultimate error was a problem with "ialmrnt5", with the PC getting into a constant loop, and performing a dump of physical memory.

 

I've tried to reboot a few more times since then, and had a succession of beeps and error messages, or something other than the PC starting up, fan spinning etc, nothing on the monitor and no hard drive action.

 

I've also just tried to load in Safe Mode, and it instantly gave me what looks like a list of registry entries (all starting with "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS\Syste m32) and a constant hard-drive activity light.

 

Now, I've had this happen before with the same PC about 3 years ago, again after it hadn't been used for a period of around 2 weeks. How can that be? For the life of me, I can't remember what I did to resolve it last time. I think I may have given in and just reformatted.

 

Don't want to do that this time though - far too much stuff on there that I can't afford to lose, so I would really appreciate if someone can tell me some of the things I should be checking to try and resolve this. How common is it for a PC to play up after a period of inactivity, and why?!

 

Thanks in advance guys,

 

Stephen H

[Goku]

Hello Stephen. I have merged both of your threads into this one for the sake of convenience. Please understand that creating multiple posts concerning the same topic only puts off the helpers rather than speed up the response time.

 

Hope you understand. Thank you for your co-operation. :)

 

-- Goku

[SoulfulScotsman]

Ahh, sorry - my mistake. Thanks for keeping me right :)

 

Stephen H

[Goku]

Ahh, sorry - my mistake. Thanks for keeping me right :)

 

Stephen H

No problem friend. I will look over your issue and see if I can find something helpful. :)

 

-- Goku

[SoulfulScotsman]

An update to my original post:

 

Earlier today the PC booted up fine and was perfectly useable. Thankfully this meant I was able to backup all my recent files onto my portable HDD, so I'm not going to lose anything.

 

Tonight, on 1st attempt of bootup the BIOS has stopped at "Verifying DMI Pool Data...."

 

On the 2nd attempt, Windows launched as far as the Windows XP launch screen with progress bar, but froze just before it gave me the User Profile selection screen - so I had just a black screen with cursor in the middle - mouse and keyboard wouldn't respond, HDD activity light flashing every second.

 

On the 3rd attempt, the PC powered up for a second, stopped, then started again a few seconds later. It gave me the Windows Safe Mode selection screen, where I selected "Last Known Good Configuration". Windows started to load, but then just froze on a black screen. The PC then rebooted itself, and brought me back to the Safe Mode selection screen. I selected "Load Windows normally", which it did up to the same point of the 2nd attempt - black screen and cursor. This time no HDD activity light.

 

It's something different every time. Three attempts is enough for one night. Anyone with any suggestions?!

 

Thanks again,

 

Stephen H

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Stephen, this could be any one thing from a large number of things.

 

However we will start with RAM memory, do you know how much RAM there is and if there is more than one memory stick?

 

Turn off the power but leave the plug connected to maintain an earth connection, remove the cover and look inside while touching the case with one hand to remove the chance of static damage, and if there is more than one stick of memory, remove one, then try it again. If no change replace the first and remove the second and try again.

Let us know if this helped or altered anything.

Others may also have other ideas to try.

Nev.

[SoulfulScotsman]

Hi Nev,

 

Thanks for your help. The reason I didn't get back to you beforehand is because the PC seems to have sorted itself out! I'm sure this must've happened last time too, as I don't remember doing anything to rectify it. Why a PC would start playing up after 2 weeks of non-use and then gradually get better is beyond me, but the main thing is that it's working again!

 

Thanks again for your help though,

 

Stephen H

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Stephen, thanks for the update and although glad you are now OK, I am a little concerned that there may be a hardware fault beginning to develop. This is now the second time this fault, or similar, has happened.

 

Do make sure all is backed up and continue to back up new work. It may fail catastrophically next time, you never know.

There are so many things, including the hard drive, that this may be down too, and if it is the hard drive, you could be struggling to get any data off it if it does fail.

Thanks though for letting us know it is OK for the time being.

Nev.