PC Freezing from cold boot

[jenno]

Hi,

I have a strange issue which i thought i would post here before calling PC Specialist in case anyone can give some advice on this.

My machine arrived a few days ago and has been working for 2 days up until Yesterday. Yesterday when booting the machine i received an error advising 'Overclock failed' so i had to go into the BIOS and reset this back to factory settings. This was happening on each bootup so the BIOS reset seemed the best thing to do which eliminated the error message. The machine worked fine all day yesterday after doing this.

This morning, when booting the machine up it locked up about 5 seconds after logging into Windows. The only way to power the machine off was a hard mains reset, which when rebooting gives you the standard options of 'boot into safe mode etc'. Now here is the strange part - using the 'boot into Windows normally option, the OS loads, I log in and have no further issues and no freezing until i carry out a full shutdown and restart. Pretty much every time I power up the machine from a standard shutdown the above freezing happens and i have to go through the process of a hard mains reset and boot via the boot options to get into the operating system.

Now i initially thought this might be an issue with one of the 2 devices i have plugged into the machine, the keyboard or mouse, so I unplugged these and again the same issues occurs (even after uninstalling/reinstalling the drivers manually just in case). Its a Microsoft keyboard as well so i have uninstalled the intellitype software as mentioned in a sticky thread in this forum but the same freezing issue occurs. I have even tried booting the machine without the devices plugged in and get the same problem so it appears to not be these peripherals. I have even been out and bought a different keyboard and mouse to test and the same occurs with new hardware.

After this, I logged into safe mode, disabled all but the required startup programs from MSConfig and the issue still occured so it wouldnt appear to be a software conflict with any of the the software i have installed. Just to be sure, i have carried out a full uninstall and reinstall of the Windows OS to try and rule out a software conflict, however after installing just the driver discs provided the issue still occurs on a cold bootup.

Im starting to think its the SSD in the machine freezing but im not sure what to try from here or what is causing the freezing on initial boot. PC Specs listed below.

Any ideas on what could be causing this, or anything i can test/check to find out what is causing this?? Many thanks in advance for any help/advice.


Case
ANTEC NINE HUNDRED TWO V3 - UK, The Ultimate Gaming Case, Evolved

Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-2700k Quad Core(3.50GHz @ max 5.00GHz)

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX***SPECIAL***

Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7970 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x LG BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£59)

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£87)

Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II FAT BOY PUSH/PULL CONFIG LIQUID CPU COOLER (£79)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

 

[tom_gr7]

hi, sorry to hear about ya troubles,

CAn you see any motherboard LED's lit up upon startup? if the SSD is faulty then a light just below ya 7970 should light up red,

Can you get into the bios? press delete at startup, then click advanced, then "boot" i think its called, and check if the SSD is still visible. then click exit and do not save any changes.

 

[jenno]

Thanks for the reply mate.

I should possibly have stated that my SSD is my boot drive with the OS on.

No lights on MB when booting that I can see (only sthe standard Power/reset lights that are on the motherboard. And after the inital boot freeze-up the machine runs fine. The BIOS boot options are correct (just double checked those too) and the SSD shows fine there also.

 

[tom_gr7]

doesnt sound like an SSD issue then, erm I guess you could try installing the HDD for a temporary solution.

Can you get into windows at all? without safe mode?

 

[Buzz]

Boot to BIOS and check your BIOS Revision number. If it is lower then the BIOS 3201

Download and install
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mis...PVistaWin7.zip

Download to desktop and extract
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...-ASUS-3201.zip

Run Ai Suite and click Update, and upgrade from file. Point to the file you just extracted to the desktop and let the BIOS update.

Let computer restart and do its bits and pieces.

Once updated go back into Bios and click advanced top right, then advanced again and click the Advanced Tab
Select onboard Device configuration and


PCI express x16_3 slot (black) = Auto
If Not using Raid
Marvell storage controller = disabled
marvell storage oprom = disabled

Click Back

AI overclock tuner = XMP or if you select auto continue to below

Select Ai tweaker tab
Memory Frequency = 1866MHz
Save and exit Bios

 

[jenno]

@tom

I couldnt get into Windows without it freezing without the 'boot windows normally option' however using that did seem to work ok.

@for_the_buzz

You are a legend - i updated the BIOS and tweaked the settings as you advised above and it seems to have fixed the issue. After multiple reboots there is no freezing and straight into the OS with no problems!!! Ive now reinstalled all my programs etc and the machine is running stably. Thank you very much!!!

Added rep for both of you for the help. Wish I would have posted before carrying out a fresh install though but still Thanks!

 

[Buzz]

Delighted to hear its sorted for you and happy to help. Tnx for the +Rep