First boot failure

[sarshad]

Hi there!

At last I solved my earlier problem of the PC hanging for no apparent reason. It was because of a faulty video card. I have an Intel SE 440 BX2 morherboard and it only has an AGP 2X socket on it. I installed the SIS 300 video card with 32 MB of vram, which the documentation said works in either 2X or 4X mode. The PC works great now with one minor problem.

If I shut off the UPS and then switch it on again, then no matter what I do, the PC freezes at the first boot attempt, right after displaying the Intel Inside motherboard logo. If I restart after that, there's no more problem and it boots and runs superbly.

If I don't switch off the UPS, ie I shut down but keep the main power on at all times, the problem does not occur. It's only after switching off the power supply totally and then switching it on again.

Can't understand if its a problem with my motherboard, smps, ups or whether I have to change any jumper or bios settings to get the card to work correctly in 2X mode.

Please Help.

Thanks a ton.

[Budfred]

Welcome to PCGuide!

Someone recently described a similar problem and someone else answered that it may have to do with how the motherboard decides if it is safe to complete a boot. If the hard drive is not spinning fast enough soon enough, the boot may fail, but when you do a warm reboot, things are already primed to move and may do so more quickly. These are second hand ideas, so hang on and hopefully someone more expert will come along.

Good luck,
Budfred

[sarshad]

Hi Budfred!

I tried setting a hard disk pre delay of 6 seconds for the hard disk but the problem remains. And it boots up well on a cold boot if the UPS is not switched off after the last shutdown... no matter how long ago that might have been.

Thanks.