Ding-Dang cold boot problem...

[caddmannq]

When the room is cold (say 50 to 60F), my first boot of the day usually locks with the message "Windows protection error. You must restart your computer." It always boots ok the second try. At that point, the CPU will be about 86F.

Normal CPU temp is 113F after a regular warm up, though I've got it up to 125F durring monster melee sessions of Serious Sam.

It virtually never ever locks up, otherwise (almost unheard of for a Win98 PC, IME.)

I thought of enabling the "slow" post to give it more time to warm the CPU, though that will slow warm boots too, but I thought someone else might have a better idea.

Hair dryer as a morning pre-heater? I'm not going to leave it on 24/7. That Delta fan is just too loud!

[caddmannq]

Oh, yeah...some pretty complete specs, just for the record:

Athlon XP1600+ w/ OCZ Dominator2 & Delta 60mm fan
Epox 8KHA+
Mushkin Cas2 DDR SDRAM 512MB
Enermax EG465P-ve PSU (465 watts peak) w/ dual fans
Visiontek GeForce3 Ti500 64MB DDR video
Maxtor DiamondMax 10.4 GB UDMA66 HDD
Maxtor 2GB 5400RPM DMA33 HDD
Dual Seagate 2GB SCSI HDDs
Adaptec UltraWide SCSI card
Smart & Friendly CD Rocket SCSI burner on Advansys SCSI card
8X Toshiba CDROM
Zip 250MB PP external
Kensington ExpertMouse trackball
Logitech Wingman Attack Joystick
Focus 5001 KB
Yamaha 10w Speakers w/ Yahama 6 1/2" 25w sub
Cheeapie no-name Chinese LT Winmodem clone
(2) 90MM & (1) 80mm case fan
O/S: Win98se
Customized full tower converted from Tri-Star full AT

Everything is currently at stock clock speeds, but has been clocked up to 1.58Ghz so far.

[DNC]

If you need more heat don't build an AMD box, just turn the furnace up or throw another log on the fire. ;)

[caddmannq]

Wha...Huh????

It is an AMD box!

[MDS]

I wouldn't think the processor(XP) would be the cause unless it's not seated tightly and after it heats enough(heat causes things to expand) it makes good contact. I'd think that ram not seated tighly that take a few to warm up to make good contact might be another thing to check as I seem to see more windoze protection errors caused but ram problems.

[caddmannq]

I set the "fast POST" to disabled last night.

Today was the coldest morning this week, and it booted up the first time, albeit slowly.

I agree about the RAM, BTW. But this is top quality stuff, and I have reseated it, although the whole PC hasn't been together long.

[caddmannq]

Update:
This morning was the coldest this week.
I hit escape a smidgen more that 1/3 into the "long post" and it booted OK.
CPU temp at that point (end of POST, pre-Windows) was 82F.
When I only let it hit 80F, the previous morning, it did not boot.
So it appears that 81F is about the breaking point.

It never did this durring the Winter, but I was running the FSB at 150 vs. 133.

So it looks as though I overclocked it, discovered that it in no way needed to be overclocked, stock-clocked it, and developed this problem!

I guess it was just born to be overclocked!
Hmmm....or maybe I'll just crank the mem voltage up 0.1v, and see what happens......

[Mntsnow]

very interesting Cadd. At first when I saw your inital post I was going to ask if you had a strong enough PSU but then you posted your specs and Yeah the evermax should be plenty strong. Will continue to see how your "testing" comes along.

[fosin]

You wouldn't blame something like that on the hard drive or mobo? (that's more of a question than suggestion)

[caddmannq]

This morning was about 5 degrees warmer than yesterday, and with no other adjustments the machine booted the first time, with quick post enabled & no additional delays.

Perhaps I'll just let this issue slide until next winter :bunny:

[caddmannq]

As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say: "Frank: Here's one for the books."

After much booting, tweaking, and dinking around, I finally found the real problem. And it was totally unrelated to temperature!
AAAKKKKKKKK!

My wife & I share a printer through an A/B switch. I pass-thru to the switch thru a PP 250 Zip drive.

If I boot up with a disk already in the Zip drive, the system halts with the error. If I eject the disk before shutting down , it boots up fine the next time.

The thing that masked this effect from me is that when I boot up early in the morning, the printer is not on, as it powers off my wife's power strip. If the printer is on, and switched to my PP, my PC boots up fine whether there is a disk in the zip drive or not!

This always occurs later in the day (when the house is warmer) as my wife is not an "early-morning-mouse-potato" like...ummm...well...like me.

:rolleyes:

[MDS]

Originally posted by caddmannq


This always occurs later in the day (when the house is warmer) as my wife is not an "early-morning-mouse-potato" like...ummm...well...like me.

:rolleyes: [/B]

Glad you found the source of the problem,now does this mean you have to get your wife up ealier or just change your setup :)
I like that I get up about 5AM everyday it's nice and quite(wife & kids still asleep) :)

[speedman]

I like that I get up about 5AM everyday it's nice and quite(wife & kids still asleep)

Ya me to...:D

But they see me enjoying myself so much they get up and join me...:rolleyes:

Hey cadd isn't it nice when you resolve a problem by sheer luck, Bet you won't forget this now...:D

[caddmannq]

Yep, all I gotta do is remember to eject the Zip before I shut down. BTW, it wasn't all sheer luck. I remembered that in the Zip 100 manual it said that if you booted the PC with a disk in the Zip drive that it might not "acquire" properly. I took this to mean that Windows would not give the drive a letter, which it always did.

Don't you just hate ambiguous language like that in a technical document??? :(

[wizofid]

boy --I got to go back and check this on one of my boxes - - but I also have been running all my herd 24/7 - including an athalon - beside the bed - yes it is noisy, especially when I'm swapping parts out for a night and working on the box.[open] Thats the night I sleep next to it as sweetie knows that I'll be waking up and checking it as I'm working and sleeping through the night. {wiz looks up reads - figures he's really luck to have have someone who doesn't pull the plug}

Abiguous - heck no - its techincal - not well written english or the lagnuage of your chioce! - and it is funny to have a buddy read it over in the language it was written.

wiz

[caddmannq]

<---Wife will not allow him to have a computer next to bed. :(

[wizofid]

TP - laugh hard now - I've got three running inside of 3 feet of the bed - 750 athalon - 667 celery and a p233 -only two monitors cause I keep robbing one to run the next and since I'm selling one I don't want VNC one it
- at least its wood cutting season so on my days off I have to get out during daylight when the weather co operates!

[MDS]

Within 3 feet of the bed I couldn't do,I'd have the wife up and there goes my quite time :)