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About 50% of the time my PC starts fine, however the other 50%, after doing a 'restart' it will dectect a new hardware device (generally 'Infrared PnP device'but this can change) which is already installed or dectects a different display setting and starts with 640x480.
If I select 'Restart', Ctrl-Alt-Del or press the 'Reset' button, upon restarting the same problem occurs. However if I turn the PC off at the mains power and then back on again and then reboot, it seems start up fine.
Does anyone have any ideas what may be causing this.
Thanks
As far as I'm aware restarting the computer goes through everything except the "power-on diagnostic checks".
This rather makes me think "hardware". It could be something that manifests itself because the computer is still hot.
Try taking the case off and cleaning all the fans and case vent holes (don't miss the power supply fan). An artists paint brush is quite handy for cleaning fan blades.
While you're in there reseating cards and plugs/sockets wouldn't go amis. Take them in and out to clear any oxide on the edge connectors.
Hopefully you will get some other ideas on this one.
Derek
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A 'warm' boot, like you get when choosing 'restart' from the shutdown menu or using CTRL-ALT-DEL, doesn't completely reset the hardware on some motherboards. But hitting the reset button on the computer, as well as turning the main power off would result in a 'cold' boot with everything reset. So it's odd that the next boot is OK after shutting the power off but not OK after hitting the reset button. Next time you try using the reset button, hold it down for a few seconds--about the time it takes you to shut the main power off, then on again and restart the computer. Do you still have the problem on the next boot? That won't solve your problem but it may define it better.
Other than that, bad ram can cause weird problems like that.
I've also heard that Duron's are more heat sensitive than other comparable cpus and that the heat damage is often permanent.
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I've tried all the sugestions, but it's still booting and finding a different display type, however if I let it start up and then check device manager it shows about 6 device conflicts.
Then I restarted and it went back to 'normal' startup (without changing any settings ?Any Ideas ????
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Very weird, none too sure about this one.
Could possibly be RAM playing up but accept that shelling out for new RAM on the basis of a wild guess is not viable.
You might be able to prove/disprove the RAM idea like this:
Assuming you have more than one stick, take them out and in a few time to clear any oxide (if you haven't done this already). If it still does it, try one RAM stick at a time to see if it only does it on one.
It won't tell us what it is, but it might take RAM idea out of the equation.
Derek
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I've tried different ram, still the same problem.
It seems that the IRQ settings are being changed everytime the system is restarted. After comparing a good restart to a bad one (re irq listing) it seems the 'Infrared Port' and 'LTP1' are messing things ups. But I casn't seem to disable Infrared in the BIOS.Would a clean format be of any help or just causing unnessacary work ???
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I'm lost too, sorry.
Reformat cures many things but obviously if it turns out to be a BIOS problem or hardware you will be wasting your time.
You could try posting it on the hardware forum I suppose, saying what you've tried already.
Dunno - hope someone else comes along with more ideas.
Derek
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You might try toggling (changing the setting from whatever it is now) the PnP OS option in cmos.
If PnP OS is disabled it should keep windows from changing the IRQ's and other settings that are established in cmos.
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The infrared port is sometimes an option for com2 in cmos. Check that setting or disable the port altogether.
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I have disabled both com ports in the bios but they still seem to be detected. ie they are showing in device manager.
I have previously tried the PnP setting but will have an other go. If I disable this will I then have to manual install any new hardware ?
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Disabling PnP OS limits the options windows has in setting up some of the hardware but it doesn't force you to manually install any hardware.
Clearing the cmos wouldn't hurt. You may have to change the settings from their default state when you reboot.
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I really appreciate your time with this one Daveincaps !!
I have disabled the PnP Bios (I Think ?) I haven't tried clearing CMOS yet, will this affect any windows setting ?
Just to give another example:
Just a moment ago the system setting were fine with LTP1 being the only port enabled.
I did a restart and upon viewing the device manager LTP1 had been changed to LTP2 and COM1 was also listed. And all I did was restart ?Very Strange....
Once again thanks for your time !
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If the default setting (after clearing the cmos) are different than what you had, windows would make the necessary changes. It would usually be ports setting. But that shouldn't be any big deal.
It's odd that it changed your LPT1 port. Has anyone suggested a virus check? There are cmos virus' that can mess up your settings.
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My mother board doesn't have any jumpers to clar the cmos, will resetting to default help, if not how can I clear the cmos ?
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You might want to check the motherboard manual. There's almost always jumpers for that.
You could set the cmos for 'load setup defaults'. With an award bios, hitting F7 does that. That should do the same thing as clearing it with a jumper
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Yeh I thought so too, but apparently one version of my mother board has it but not the other. I can actually see on the mother board where the jumper should be (it says clr cmos)but there's no actual jumper connected just the 'solder' positon.
Anyway I'll try resetting in the BIOS and see how we go.
Thanks again for your help.
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Yeah, I worked on one of those motherboards once. The jumper pins weren't there even though the 'clrcmos' was etched on the board. I couldn't get into cmos because they'd set a password. I finally (very carefully) shorted the 2 solder joints where the pins should have been and cleared it that way.
Try loading the setup defaults from cmos. I doubt your problem is in cmos but it would be good to rule it out.
Also, did you manage to do a virus check?
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What would be the best method to check the cmos for a virus ?
I tried setting the default values in cmos but the problem still exists. I was considering 'shorting' the pins but I tried the default values first. If I could clear the cmos that way would that remove a virus, if there is one there ?
The mystery contines.....
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The virus wouldn't be in the cmos. It's on the hard drive but it attacks the cmos. So clearing the cmos wouldn't have an affect. A standard virus scan would turn it up if it's there.
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Sorry to continue the saga DAVEINCAPS, but I've done I few different scans but no virus has come up.
I'll try 'shorting' the cmos from the mother board to clear it as previously sugested and see what happens.
It seems that windows and the BIOS aren't working together, hence windows seems to change the settings from the BIOS ???
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DAVEINCAPS, you mentioned early on in this posting that Duron can be permenatly damaged due to heat. Could this problem be related to the processor.
The processor seems to be working fine as once booted everything works the only problems lie with the devices not being set correctly.
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What I heard about the Durons was that when one was heat damaged the damage was permanent and the consequence was various error messages--I don't recall the specifics. This came third person from someone at Intel who's job I guess was to check out the competition. I don't recall that the hardware settings were affected.
The only way I know to prevent windows from changing the settings is to disable PnP OS in cmos, as I mentioned above. Of course, many windows settings can't be specified in cmos.
I wonder if maybe your OS is running out of resources and having a problem setting up the hardware. You may want to disable one or both of the com ports in cmos if you're not using them in order to free up those resources for other hardware.
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Yeh, I actually tried that previously. I disabled both com ports but they were still detected (see response 13).
What about flashing the BIOS which was only done relativly recently (the problem was happening before that too).
Just noticed system information showing 240mb ram when I have 256 installed. Just a observation ?
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Yeah, sometimes windows will still see a disabled port.
Upgrading the bios could possibly have caused the problem if the update was buggy. You might check for another upgrade as the manufacturer should make another if the previous one had flaws.
I suspect the missing 16 meg of RAM is shared RAM being used by your video adapter.
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I'll check for an upgrade and see what happens after that.
I suspected that might be the case with the 16mb.
Thanks again !
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Just to keep you posted. I upgraded the bios and the system seems to be boot a little more 'normal'.
However I give a few days just to see ??????
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Latest update !
Most conflicts seems to be fixed however, LTP1 is not being detected only LTP2 which is using IRQ 3.
IRQ 7 is free, which is where LTP 1 is generally assigned to.
????????????????
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IRQ 3 is usually assigned to com2. Check those port settings again in cmos. What addresses are assigned to the various com and lpt ports there?
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After I got a good boot, I changed the resource setting for the LTP1 port to exactly correspond with what was set in the BIOS. IE BIOS set parallel port to:
3BC
ECP
IRQ = 7
DMA = 3Under resource settings for the LTP1 port I changed the "Setting Based On" to use "Basic Configuration 0003".
Which seemed to list the most simliar settings to that which was in the BIOS.
So far everything is working well but I'll wait and see ????
Could this have been the problem ????
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Normally windows configures the ports as they're set in cmos. My ECP printer is set for automatic settings in device manager--0278 address and IRQ5. I can't check cmos while the computer's running but I imagine those are the settings there also.
But as long as windows doesn't have a conflict you should be able to set it however you want. Sometimes a conflict may not show so if you find a configuration that works better than another one, go ahead and use it.
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