Pretty sure I know what the problem is-power
Thursday, April 1, 2004 at 7:59 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by tvrfreak
(5 messages posted)
I started getting this error after I added a UPS and had my printer plugged in. I
couldn't figure out why my PC wouldn't boot. Af first it would lock up at mup.sys
while booting in safe mode. Then it stopped going beyond the memory test.
For troubleshooting, I pugged each component into a different PC. No problems found.
Finally, frustrated, I sent the motherboard in for repair. It was a Gigabit motherboard,
one with lots of stuff built in, such as ethernet, sound, usb, com ports, parallel
ports, etc.
While that was being fixed, I bought a new power supply and motherboard and memory
and reinstalled XP and all my applications.
Everything was fine for a while, till one day when I turned on my printer. My UPS
shut down my PC, which told me that there was some issue with power. After that,
my PC would freeze at the memory test, or go to mup.sys and then freeze. Sometimes,
it would reboot at mup.sys, and very rarely, it would go all the way to windows.
It got worse and worse till it stopped booting.
I swapped the memory slot locations, the power supply, the motherboard, and the case.
No improvement.
This manufacturer of this motherboard, ABIT IS7, had their headquarters near me.
So I took the whole PC there and tested it with the help of some electrical engineers.
At first, the customer service reps were really unhelpful, refusing to let me come
in, claiming that the problem was not with their component, etc. etc. They could
not understand that the problem was not a component, but the combination of components,
and that I needed to figure out which one to eliminate to get their product to work
for me.
Anyways, of course everything tested ok by itself. But they could not get it to go
beyond the memory test until they unplugged all the components. At that point, I
remembered someone posting about unplugging all the USB devices, so I thought it
would be good to just boot up with a video card and one hard drive installed. This
got us farther, to the mup.sys, but it was locking up there. I tried disabling mup.sys
but it didn't work. (Later found out that I had typed the command in wrong--you have
to type disable mup while in recovery mode, not disable mup.sys). We tested my CPU
and memory and boot disk in a different system and made sure they were ok. They seemed
to be, although we didn't allow it to boot all the way in case XP reconfigured itself
too much and created further complications.
We tested with another hard drive, and it booted up fine. So we transferred the mup.sys
over. But this didn't fix it either. I had them upgrade my BIOS (from version 16
to 18) and then I brought the whole mess home.
After a couple of days of looking at it lying in a corner and working off my laptop,
I decided to give it another shot, again troubleshooting by removing all components.
But this time I made a list of everything that had been tried here and decided to
use the computer case, power suppoly, and motherboard as the base test system.
I went into BIOS and enabled APCI, or at least the options that I thought would put
in the settings that XP would recognize as APCI being enabled, as my BIOS did not
have that specifically.
I added the CPU, memory, a USB mouse, keyboard, and one hard drive. It booted. Woo
hoo!
I then added my second hard drive. It worked.
I then added my internal IDE CD ROM. It worked.
Internal IDE DVD burner. Worked.
I then added my USB devices (2 powered hubs, phone, joystick, 8-in-1 memory reader,
serial to USB converter, parallel to USB converter, 2 printers, scanner, speakers,
remote control receiver, etc., etc. It did not work, freezing at mup.sys.
I removed the USB plugs and added another internal IDE controller PCI card that is
used to control my third and fourth hard drives which I use for backup. Again, it
did not work, this time freezing at the memory test.
So, I can currently boot without USB devices and internal PCI cards attached. Once
in XP, I can attach the USB devices without problem. However, if I turn on the printer,
there is a clicking noise from the UPS, which tells me there is some power issue,
although I can't bring myself to call the UPS company and sit on hold and have some
moron "guess" at my problem.
One other thing I tried was, while booting with a known "successful" minimum hardware
configuration, I touched one of the internal power connections to the third hard
drive for a second, even though it was not connected to any controller. The computer
froze instantly, further reinforcing my opinion that it is a power supply issue.
Also, this explains why different things have worked for different people. Their
components come on-line at different points in the boot process, and different items
cause the power level to reach the critical point. Also, electrical drains start
with a spike, and then level off. So a memory module moved to a different slot will
cause a spike in consumption at a different time, by which time another spike could
have leveled off, thereby not exceeding the power supply's limits. Same with moving
cards to different slots. Same with ACPI configuration settings being detected and
acted upon.
Incidentally, when I got my system working, I also found out that another BIOS update
had been posted in the last two days on ABIT's site. I pulled that in, but it did
not help, even though the documentation for it said that it resolved a "CPU unworkable"
error for the Prescott chip. I don't have a Prescott chip, but I had been hoping...
I intend to upgrade my internal power supply to the biggest, baddest I can get, and
next time I will get a quiet one as well. Currently, I have a 350W power supply.
I am going to look for 500W minimum. I may have to upgrade my UPS to more amperage
as well, although I am not sure that there is any "conditioning" happening to the
power if there is no power outage.
I don't think there was ever anything "wrong" with my motherboards except in their
inherent design of how they distribute power. I suspect that even if I upgrade my
power supply, the USB ports can only handle so much load during boot. That's a shame,
but I will research it and if I find any solutions, I will post them here.Maybe I
can persuade Microsoft to release a patch that will detect all USB ports, but put
in a delay before powering up each one. They all work once the system is up and running,
so I think this solution could work.
Just in case you guys think I enjoy doing this, I HATE fixing computers. It's a huge
waste of time, and if I had the money, I would pay someone else to do it. Like cars
and appliances, I want to use them, not fix them.
Why can't manufacturers foresee typical power consumption and design accordingly?
Why can't there be circuitry in the motherboard or in the power-supply to dectect
and warn about excessive power drain/consumption?
Why can't there be additional text messages with each file that's loaded...now loading
xyz, which is used in such and such. In case of the computer locking up while this
file is being loaded, do this.
Thoroughly ticked off, but relieved that I have access to my files.
Thank you to everyone here for the tips that helped me. I hope my post is helpful
to someone.
- Written in response to:
- re: Fix using System Hive (Serevinus: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 at 9:24 am)
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