Windows 7 Failed To Start

roberthurley14

oook, so lets start off with the story :P

Basically my PC will randomly fail to boot with Windows 7 32-bit, when it goes to recovery concole it finds no errs and suggests a restore, the odd thing is sometimes it boots fine, i went through the basic steps, i ran Memtest86 to check my ram and moved them about which sometimes worked sometimes didnt, and memtest found no errors with any of the 4 sticks (i have 4*1GB) so i did a fresh install but the err soon popped back up, i checked event viewer but only errs or relevance were kernalpower ones relating to the restarts it did when it failed to boot. i changed the HDD just to be sure with no avail, im unsure if its a psu err or what now! i even flahed the bios to try fix it! anyone have suggestions?? and no nothings been OC'ed..or added recently

Heres my PC stats:
OS; Win 7 PRO 32-bit
Mainboard: EVGA 790i SLI FTW
Processor: Intel Q6600 QUAD CORE @ 2.40GHz
Ram: Corsair XMS 4*1GB (CM3x1g1600c9dhx---the code of the RAM)
GPU: EVGA NVIDIA GTX 295 CO-OP Edition 2GB (driver 12/01/10)
Sound: Fata1ty creative SB-Xfi
HDD: WD 1TB 7900RPM
PSU: Hiper Power 730W (sli capable)

roberthurley14

follow progression on EVGA:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=190212&high=windows+7+failed+to+start

Cuddlesworth

Last post on the Evga forum is spot on, except its on 3.2gigs of usable RAM not four. That would mean 2gigs for gfx card, system at at least 1gig then things like x-fi has 256mb if I'm not mistaken. A 1gig gfx card would have been the better option or a 64bit version of windows rather then a new cpu.

The q6600 is a great cpu, it doesn't need replacing.

swirlser

Regardless of whether it is the cause of your problems, you should definitely get a 64-bit OS with that setup.

roberthurley14

the cpu is only reading as one core though? i still dont understand how changing to a 64-bit OS would solve the issue,
also ild have to be high to downgrade from my GTX295

wait i think i get it now, ill get 64bit win7 from "certain sources" tonight and give it a go
its also notable that i did boot without the GTX295 in place of an old 256mb ATI card but the errors still happened

Cuddlesworth

go to c:\Windows\Mindump, compress the files into a zip/rar archive and attach them to a post here. I will tell you why your machine is restarting at boot.

Cuddlesworth

roberthurley14 wrote: »

the cpu is only reading as one core though? i still dont understand how changing to a 64-bit OS would solve the issue,
also ild have to be high to downgrade from my GTX295

wait i think i get it now, ill get 64bit win7 from "certain sources" tonight and give it a go
its also notable that i did boot without the GTX295 in place of an old 256mb ATI card but the errors still happened

also are you positive you went into the bios and reset to defaults?

roberthurley14

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

go to c:\Windows\Mindump, compress the files into a zip/rar archive and attach them to a post here. I will tell you why your machine is restarting at boot.

the PC is starting up now but the CPU only shows 1 core, there are no dmp files from %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP

roberthurley14

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

also are you positive you went into the bios and reset to defaults?

yep, tried both fail-safe default and optimised default options with no avail

Cuddlesworth

roberthurley14 wrote: »

the PC is starting up now but the CPU only shows 1 core, there are no dmp files from %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP

If your machine restarts or fails to load and doesn't create a memory dump it is one of three things.

A hard-drive issue. The hard-drive becomes unresponsive so windows crash's and no dump file is written. Disable automatic restart on system failure. Take note of the stop error code if it halts on the blue screen.

Cpu is overheating and forcing the system to reboot. This could also create error messages about the system limited cpu speed/power in event viewer. There are temp monitoring tools and you can view idle temps in the bios. It's been a while, but if your idle is 60c or higher you could have a problem.

Power supply is cutting out the system. Without a decent bit of knowledge and a power voltage reader read off the motherboard its hard to judge. I will say that the fact it had problems with a second(and most likely less power hungry card) would lead me to believe its a long shot.

roberthurley14

heres a screenshot of my device MGR, notice tha processor is only listed as 1 not 4 and that 3 pci express ports are down:

Kinetic^

Can you test the cpu on another system? Sounds like the mobo could be FUBAR.

roberthurley14

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

If your machine restarts or fails to load and doesn't create a memory dump it is one of three things.

A hard-drive issue. The hard-drive becomes unresponsive so windows crash's and no dump file is written. Disable automatic restart on system failure. Take note of the stop error code if it halts on the blue screen.

Cpu is overheating and forcing the system to reboot. This could also create error messages about the system limited cpu speed/power in event viewer. There are temp monitoring tools and you can view idle temps in the bios. It's been a while, but if your idle is 60c or higher you could have a problem.

Power supply is cutting out the system. Without a decent bit of knowledge and a power voltage reader read off the motherboard its hard to judge. I will say that the fact it had problems with a second(and most likely less power hungry card) would lead me to believe its a long shot.

i changed the HD otfor a new one so its not that, the temps of the cpu are idling about 40 plus i a new enough cooler on it so its not a temp issue...i think the cpu is dead/dieing...

roberthurley14

Kinetic^ wrote: »

Can you test the cpu on another system? Sounds like the mobo could be FUBAR.

i have a new CPU on its way ill know then, the board should be grand its only a year old

roberthurley14

cpu z screenshot: shows i have 1 core only being read:

Cuddlesworth

Exact same issue with no real fix

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266187-28-q6600-showing-core

Cuddlesworth

Have you tried a bios upgrade? Its worked for a few people.

roberthurley14

SWEET BABY JESUS I HIT THE ERROR!!!

ok im going to explain this properly because ive noticed others have had a similar error before,

Basically the error was due to the ACPI Driver, to view what ACPI driver is installed you rightclick my computer and click manage, then go to computer management and click the top icon of a computer it should read "ACPI x86/x64 (depending on bit of OS) - based PC"

the error was happening as this was listed as " advanced configuration and power interface (acpi) PC" this meant that the PC was not able to use a quad/dual core technology, i downloaded the latest MoBo drivers and installed them and on restart used optimal settings option an voila! SUCCESS!

Ild like to thank all that gave advice and ive promtly cancelled my new CPU order :P