OS doesn't want to wake up

[slofox]

OK whizzkiddies, answer me this one if'n ya can...

The home puter doesn't want to start its OS (that great leap backwards, Windows Vista Home Edition...)

We get as far as the motherboard splash screen and no further will it go. There's a list of key functions appears along the bottom of the splash screen but none of them have the slightest effect on anything that I can see.

Anyone got any ideas or do I take it to "the man" (and shell out ten gazillion megabucks...).

Ta in advance all.

[bogan]

How long have you waited for? Win7 sometimes decides to take a few mins to do its thing.

[slofox]

How long have you waited for? Win7 sometimes decides to take a few mins to do its thing.

It ran about 20 minutes this morning with nary a sign of life...

[avgas]

Turn on the computer, every 5 seconds hit F8.

Should give you a boot menu, select "Safe Mode"

When it lets you in, go to "My Computer", open it up. Right Click on the hard-drive and select "properties", click the "Tools" tab.
There should be an "error checking" or "check disk".
Hit "Check now"
Tick both tick boxes, and hit "Start"

It should say something along the lines of "This will be checked next restart".

Restart your computer.
Give it some time and it should sort itself out.

[slofox]

Turn on the computer, every 5 seconds hit F8.

Should give you a boot menu, select "Safe Mode"

When it lets you in, go to "My Computer", open it up. Right Click on the hard-drive and select "properties", click the "Tools" tab.
There should be an "error checking" or "check disk".
Hit "Check now"
Tick both tick boxes, and hit "Start"

It should say something along the lines of "This will be checked next restart".

Restart your computer.
Give it some time and it should sort itself out.

T'anx avgas - you da man! I'll try it when I get home tonight.

[Sable]

And when you've done that back up your important shit, format and install Windows 7.

[SMOKEU]

And when you've done that back up your important shit, format and install Windows 7.

+1 to that, or a good Linux distro like Ubuntu or Mint.

[Gremlin]

The motherboard splash screen may have F keys along the bottom, you're looking for Boot Menu or something like that, then do as avgas says. Could also be F10 or F12, varies from manufacturer to manufacturer

[iYRe]

if its a laptop and you have closed the lid and hybernated or some such, and you are expecting to wake it up.. well.. moving to linux wont help (especially bad at waking up).

Most of the time this is due to it having to "wake up" too many things in the background and stalling. I would not recommend this as a method to prevent closing/shutting/rebooting..

Shut it down properly, and start it up properly - you dont leave the key on in the bike (or running, for that matter) overnight because its faster to start it in the morning :P

Otherwise you need to start by making sure as less crap as possible is installed/running (use ccleaner to sort it out - www.piriform.com) and reboot then see if it is better. Afore mentioned scandisk will help, as will a defrag. Definite upgrade to win 7 will help the machine in general - might not solve this issue though, as it is fairly generic.

[slofox]

if its a laptop and you have closed the lid and hybernated or some such, and you are expecting to wake it up.. well.. moving to linux wont help (especially bad at waking up).

Most of the time this is due to it having to "wake up" too many things in the background and stalling. I would not recommend this as a method to prevent closing/shutting/rebooting..

Shut it down properly, and start it up properly - you dont leave the key on in the bike (or running, for that matter) overnight because its faster to start it in the morning :P

Otherwise you need to start by making sure as less crap as possible is installed/running (use ccleaner to sort it out - www.piriform.com) and reboot then see if it is better. Afore mentioned scandisk will help, as will a defrag. Definite upgrade to win 7 will help the machine in general - might not solve this issue though, as it is fairly generic.

It's a desk top model. And it was turned off overnight before it refused to wake up.

This is a recent acquisition and has very little installed on it. Yet. The start-up menu is pretty sparse as well.

Thanks for the advice.

[iYRe]

right.. well a couple of things I would try..

power off and power out.. the usual thing, wait 30 secs.. some people hit the "power on" button while waiting - they think it helps discharge capacitors and stuff, doesnt matter if you do or dont afaik.

Go into the bios and choose "reset to defaults" - might clear some odd setting that has some how got set.

Start hitting F8 as soon as the boot screen comes up - some times it is actually loading windows but has stalled somewhere before it can display something on the screen. Might then give you the option to boot into safemode.

If it is a fairly new computer, take it back whence it came - it should not be behaving like this from the get-go. It could be a faulty CPU, RAM, HDD, Video Card - or the driver associated with it. Once, years ago, when I used windows, I was talking to a M$ dev team member, and he said that these problems are often driver problems, and that driver problems can be because:
a: the driver is corrupt
b: the driver is corrupt because the disk sector it is stored on is faulty.
c: the driver cant initialise because the hardware it is interfacing with is faulty
d: wrong driver forced onto some essential hardware, making it act like it is faulty.

I'd offer to come have a look, but i'm in AK - and the wife is due to have a baby in the next week or so, lol..

[sil3nt]

Don't spend money getting someone to look at it. I will come look if the advice in this thread does not help.

But just to be clear the PC works fine but the problem is the computer goes to sleep but does not wake up?

[iYRe]

Don't spend money getting someone to look at it. I will come look if the advice in this thread does not help.

But just to be clear the PC works fine but the problem is the computer goes to sleep but does not wake up?

no, he said it was powered off. Bit of confusion with what "waking up" means i think :P

[slofox]

Don't spend money getting someone to look at it. I will come look if the advice in this thread does not help.

But just to be clear the PC works fine but the problem is the computer goes to sleep but does not wake up?

The computer was off overnight. Normal shutdown. This morning it did as described.

[sil3nt]

no, he said it was powered off. Bit of confusion with what "waking up" means i think :PAh right. If i can find my other Windows 7 copy you could have that. Trouble is i have no idea where i put it :facepalm:

[iYRe]

Ah right. If i can find my other Windows 7 copy you could have that. Trouble is i have no idea where i put it :facepalm:

i'd have put it in file 13 :P

[neels]

If you've got a usb keyboard on some puters the f keys don't work at startup, only once the os starts to load, in which case you'll need to plug in a ps/2 keyboard to access the bios.

If you've lost the hard drive from the bios, or worse it's dead, it may cause it to hang at startup as there's nowhere to look for it's os.

If you've got a bootable cd stick it in the drive and see if it can find that to boot from.

[slofox]

If you've got a usb keyboard on some puters the f keys don't work at startup, only once the os starts to load, in which case you'll need to plug in a ps/2 keyboard to access the bios.

If you've lost the hard drive from the bios, or worse it's dead, it may cause it to hang at startup as there's nowhere to look for it's os.

If you've got a bootable cd stick it in the drive and see if it can find that to boot from.

It's a ps/2 keyboard.

I'll have a fiddle around with it when I get home later tonight. See what transpires. If anything.

Maybe it just needs some "percussive maintenance"...:innocent:

[ducatilover]

My last desktop was doing this sometimes, oddly it turned out to be the CMOS battery.
When it boots up, the list of shit appears on the screen, somewhere in that list you'll see cmos battery and it's status.
I hope your problem is as simple as mine :niceone:

[slofox]

Right. So I tested various suggestions last evening and absolutely nothing worked; the machine is totally unresponsive to any input.


Tapping F8 doesn't work. Starting it up with the windows vista disk in the drive made no difference either. Letting it just sit there for half an hour does nothing either. So I begin to suspect something deep down there on the inside somewhere is fucked. Like the HD maybe - it didn't seem to be doing anything at all when I had the side panel off.

I've had to revert to using an ancient, steam-driven spare box that I've had sitting on the floor for ages.


Any further suggestions before I call "the man?"

[iYRe]

at this point I'd say that there is not much more you can do, if its under warranty it needs to go back to where you got it.

Otherwise I can recommend Dave from need a nerd (waikato - that's where you are, right?) - he's a friend of mine and wont feed you a line of BS.

[slofox]

at this point I'd say that there is not much more you can do, if its under warranty it needs to go back to where you got it.

Otherwise I can recommend Dave from need a nerd (waikato - that's where you are, right?) - he's a friend of mine and wont feed you a line of BS.

Thanks for that iYRe. I'll see what I can do.

[sil3nt]

Sounds like a dead mobo/HD.

[slofox]

Sounds like a dead mobo/HD.

The HD is ominously silent and vibration free...:blink:

[iYRe]

Sounds like a dead mobo/HD.

well its getting past POST, so its likely to be a component, like video, network, audio, cpu, ram or HDD :P

Either way, at this point, its beyond tech support over a forum :P

[avgas]

bugger man. without seeing it I can't offer much more advice.

[slofox]

bugger man. without seeing it I can't offer much more advice.

It's at the diagnostician's today with the instruction "Evaluate only". Find out what's foobahed and go from there.

[Gremlin]

If it was just the hard drive, then the system should complete post, then say something like "Invalid system disk" blah blah, basically meaning it can't find an OS (which then points to the drive). If it's just the splash screen only it would usually point to the Hard drive, unless the PSU is crapping out.

[slofox]

Got this machine back from "the man" today...

Turns out the solution was incredibly technical. The dude unplugged one of the RAM modules and plugged it back in. Machine fired up right away after that...:facepalm:

goddambloodyarseholedevicennnnngrgrgrgrgrgrrrrr.

[sil3nt]

Got this machine back from "the man" today...

Turns out the solution was incredibly technical. The dude unplugged one of the RAM modules and plugged it back in. Machine fired up right away after that...:facepalm:

goddambloodyarseholedevicennnnngrgrgrgrgrgrrrrr.Di d they charge you something stupid to do that?

Good its fixed :yes:

[slofox]

Did they charge you something stupid to do that?

Good its fixed :yes:


The minimum service charge of $37.50. Even I could afford that. Just.. NOW, back to Crysis 2...:devil2:

[iYRe]

I think I did mention RAM somewhere along the way :psst:

[ellipsis]

lost my Mac in the first earthquake...my son set me up with a pc and showed around the windows world...a whole year of time wasting, waiting, freezing screens,glitches, screaming and hair pulling...back with a new Mac for six weeks now...plain sailing, no shit, fast as and so simple....get a Mac....I await the derisory from beyond....

[ducatilover]

lost my Mac in the first earthquake...my son set me up with a pc and showed around the windows world...a whole year of time wasting, waiting, freezing screens,glitches, screaming and hair pulling...back with a new Mac for six weeks now...plain sailing, no shit, fast as and so simple....get a Mac....I await the derisory from beyond....
I run a Win7 PC, but, a mate has a MacBook Pro and I love it. OSX is brilliant, they're generally very simple and fast.
But, my 2 core hyper-threaded thingy-bob cost me a grand total of nothing and it's fast, quiet and problem free, so I'm happy.

[steve_t]

...get a Mac....I await the derisory from beyond....

As requested :scooter:

http://static.desktopnexus.com/thumbnails/376012-bigthumbnail.jpg

[Brian d marge]

Somebody has to do this


Linux ,

free stable no viruses ,,,,,,blah blah


never looked back

Stephen

ps why would you use windows and why is it so popular ???

[pete376403]

Somebody has to do this


Linux ,

free stable no viruses ,,,,,,blah blah


never looked back

Stephen

ps why would you use windows and why is it so popular ???
Cos way back when IBM started sellingt the first PCs Bill Gates did a deal that got MS DOS included with every PC.
In order for every other PC maker to be "IBM compatible" the more or less had to offer MS DOS as well.
The rest is history.

[SMOKEU]

ps why would you use windows and why is it so popular ???

I like linux and have used Ubuntu and Mint for a while, but it still doesn't natively support Battlefield 3 or most other games I like to play...

[Brian d marge]

I like linux and have used Ubuntu and Mint for a while, but it still doesn't natively support Battlefield 3 or most other games I like to play...

Have the same problems with engineering software ,

Cant understand it , if I make software I would want it to be available to as many people as possible , in the early day not many were using Linux but now ..... must be a different story surely !

Stephen

[Gremlin]

if I make software I would want it to be available to as many people as possible
Uh.... so that's why they made it for Windows? :scratch:

If you only have the money/time for one OS, then obviously the largest percentage of people still use Windows :lol:

[Brian d marge]

Uh.... so that's why they made it for Windows? :scratch:

If you only have the money/time for one OS, then obviously the largest percentage of people still use Windows :lol:

missed point , more and more are drifting away , an yet the uptake by software makers seems slow , the french are one exception , ( with the software I use )

Stephen

[sil3nt]

Easy to develop software for windows where the money is. Why waste time developing for an OS that isn't going to bring in many dollars?

[imdying]

Have the same problems with engineering software ,

Cant understand it , if I make software I would want it to be available to as many people as possible , in the early day not many were using Linux but now ..... must be a different story surely !

StephenLinux desktop usage hovers around 5%, although it's in downward trend at the moment. MacOS has been ahead of Linux for the last 5 years, so that'd be the place you'd start porting.

[imdying]

missed point , more and more are drifting awayFrom Windows? No they're not. Most of the drifting is from Linux to MacOS.

[avgas]

Cos way back when IBM started sellingt the first PCs Bill Gates did a deal that got MS DOS included with every PC.
In order for every other PC maker to be "IBM compatible" the more or less had to offer MS DOS as well.
The rest is history.
Using your history books the English would have conquered the world in 20 days.

While the "PC" side of things was usually DOS/Windows......business sales was a different beast
For IBM it was:
OS-2 warp........1990's
IBM LINUX.........1990's-2000's
IBM/DELL UBUNTU's....2000's

For a while (about 5 years) Dell was selling more PC's with Linux that HP/Compaq was selling thin-clients.

Not to mention Novell, SUN, NEXT-G......

Was quite a thorn in Gates's side. And I am a DOS/Winows fan.
People use windows because all the training programs are based around this. It was a fantastic thing microsoft figured out in the early days that destroyed their competition. But in business sales - it was a free for all as companies could afford to do free training for a 10,000 computer rollout.

[Brian d marge]

From Windows? No they're not. Most of the drifting is from Linux to MacOS.

yes the are , cos i said so , so there

Stephen

[imdying]

yes the are , cos i said so , so there

StephenSure. By the way, the 5% for Linux is the highest figure I could find, most analysts estimate that actual desktop usage is less than one percent. Developing for Linux on the desktop is basically developing for a dead operating system.

[NordieBoy]

Quite a few people bought the Asus Eee with Linux rather than windows as it had more storage. The desktop environment was a handful of buttons with "Internet", "Photos", "Writing" type stuff. If asked they couldn't tell you what linux was but maybe just some buttons on a screen.

[iYRe]

I got one for my wife, and then it died so I got another with windows on it.. she said can you make it work like the other one, this one sucks.. So i installed ubuntu netbook remix on it.

It's hard to know really, what % of the market is owned by whom. Mac OS for example, is a form of unix (like linux) and has a fancy window manager(the flashy clicky bit that most people think is the operating system), it runs on pc hardware and costs a gazillion bucks. Linux is a form of unix, that runs on PC hardware, and has a number of different window managers, most of which can be made to "look like" a mac :P and is FREE!

Fact is, people use windows because they have some experience with it, and there is fear, uncertainty and doubt about their ability to use/learn anything else. Another fact is, most people would find using something like ubuntu easier, cheaper, safer, and more reliable. But they wont change...

Gaming is not a "legitimate" reason for using windows, any more that it is legitimate to buy a car to use for sleeping in. Sure, you can sleep in it, but if you cant use it for work/travel/etc then its not fulfilling its purpose. Beds are for sleeping in, consoles are for gaming on, computers are like cars (or bikes for that matter).

[imdying]

consoles are for gaming onNo, consoles are not powerful enough for the best gaming. They can't render much more than cut down things in 1080P. Take Gran Turismo 5 for example. Lovely game, nice driving physics, beautifully rendered cars, but sparse scenery, and a very limited number of cars on the track at one time (16?). GTAIV is another example... low res and it chugs like a beyatch on a PS3 if you start blowing things up. That's your lot... but on a PC, just throw more hardware at it and you can render anything you like at anything you like. Consoles aren't for any sort of serious gamer, consoles are for kids. My PS3 is basically just a glorified BD/CD player/DVR.... other than ripping it up in a 787B, I'd rather game on a PC any time. It is however good when I need to amuse some young cousins/nieces and nephews for a few hours though.

[iYRe]

No, consoles are not powerful enough for the best gaming. They can't render much more than cut down things in 1080P. Take Gran Turismo 5 for example. Lovely game, nice driving physics, beautifully rendered cars, but sparse scenery, and a very limited number of cars on the track at one time (16?). GTAIV is another example... low res and it chugs like a beyatch on a PS3 if you start blowing things up. That's your lot... but on a PC, just throw more hardware at it and you can render anything you like at anything you like. Consoles aren't for any sort of serious gamer, consoles are for kids. My PS3 is basically just a glorified BD/CD player/DVR.... other than ripping it up in a 787B, I'd rather game on a PC any time. It is however good when I need to amuse some young cousins/nieces and nephews for a few hours though.

none of that changes the fact that gaming is not the main use for a PC. Besides, the new consoles that are coming out are more and more powerful

[imdying]

none of that changes the fact that gaming is not the main use for a PCRight, lets get something straight right off the bat. Just because you think something does not make it a fact. A fact is something that is 100% accurate, and probably citable. To say that the most versatile complicated machine ever designed by humanity has a main use is nothing less that fucking stupid. The only 'main use' that you could possibly attribute to a PC is running software. It would be no less retarded to say that the main use of a PC is to view pron on the interwebs :rolleyes:


Besides, the new consoles that are coming out are more and more powerfulWell fucking yippeee... I'll just go play GT5 or GTAIV on a product that doesn't even exist yet. The reality is that consoles are underpowered compared to their PC cousins before they're even released, and then they start on a 6+ year cycle of getting out run by progressively cheaper and cheaper PCs). Consoles have two things over PCs; price and ease of use. That's it. FFS there are even entire aspects of gaming that can't be handled by a console.

Please, save my fucking sanity and don't bother replying till you actually put some though into the tripe you're typing :bash:

[iYRe]

Ignoring all the other redundant strawmen you have come up with..

I didnt tell you to play on a non existant console.. you CAN play on a console now, its just not as pretty as you would like it..

Honestly..

[imdying]

Yes, that's right, you've been talking shit. Run along now :facepalm:

[SMOKEU]

The PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles are around 6 years old. Even the newer versions still have the same basic hardware. Sure, the newer ones have bigger HDDs and a few more features but it's still a 6 year old machine which has no where near the power of a good, modern gaming PC. My gaming rig will kill any current gaming console.

[avgas]

The PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles are around 6 years old. Even the newer versions still have the same basic hardware. Sure, the newer ones have bigger HDDs and a few more features but it's still a 6 year old machine which has no where near the power of a good, modern gaming PC. My gaming rig will kill any current gaming console.
Yeah but in the time its taken you, and the money its cost you I have been playing games for 6 years ;)

I used to be a big PC gamer, but got to the point where I was buying a new rig ever 2 years.....and I got sick of it.
Console its easy, plug in, turn on, play game. And I have been playing 1920x1080 res for the last year or so.

So far my console+TV+games is still less that what I payed for a gaming BOX in 2005 :shutup: let alone monitor, razor KB&mouse....

No brainer for me these days.

[SMOKEU]

Consoles are not true 1080p, it's just 720p upscaled to 1080p. Yes, gaming computers are very expensive compared to consoles but at least with a PC it's easier to pirate games so that's a lot of money saved right there. 6 years in computers is like 20 years for bikes. Comparing a console with a good modern gaming rig is like comparing a late 1980s CBR1000F with the latest CBR1000RR.

I have spent around $3K building up a gaming PC this year so I could have bought a console and a lot of games with that money...

[Scuba_Steve]

Consoles are not true 1080p, it's just 720p upscaled to 1080p.
Thats dependent on the game some are true 1080p some aren't even 720p all dependent on the game & PC's are no better they too just upscale, yes they can upscale further & throw on more "smoke n mirror" effects but they are still upscaling from console res (as thats where most are ported from) & still using console textures (unless hi-res texture pack is released).


Yes, gaming computers are very expensive compared to consoles but at least with a PC it's easier to pirate games so that's a lot of money saved right there.
It's getting harder to do that especially with games you want to play online which most of the popular ones are.

End of da day consoles will give you good graphics, good performance, ease of use & good value for money & they are still holding their own 6yrs in. Also, consoles have the games or have them 1st.

PC's will give you better gfx, better performance, more flexibility round moding & servers etc but it comes with a heavy cost both financial & time
Fact: it takes a PC 4-20x (yes upto twenty times) the graphical processing power to achieve the same gfx as a console.
I too dropped PC gaming a few years back mainly because of cost but also because consoles have all the best games*

(*IMO dependent on the type of games you like to play)

[SMOKEU]

Fact: it takes a PC 4-20x (yes upto twenty times) [/SIZE]

I'm not trying to dispute that (take a look at a 6 year old gaming PC), but does anyone here know why that is?

[pete376403]

Using your history books the English would have conquered the world in 20 days.

While the "PC" side of things was usually DOS/Windows......business sales was a different beast
For IBM it was:
OS-2 warp........1990's
IBM LINUX.........1990's-2000's
IBM/DELL UBUNTU's....2000's

.

Yous seem to miss the bit between the introduction of the IBM PC model 5150 in the early 80's and OS/2 in the 90's - thats a 10 year head start that Microsoft had. (FWIW I was working at IBM and got to try the very first 5150 in this country straight out of the box - my part in that was to get the 110-230 volt transformers that were necessary because these were US spec machines).
OS/2 - original version built by MS was pretty crappy. No business would want to stick with that. OS2 v2 built by IBM was a little better. Warp was better again but by the too late, Win3.11 and NT pissed all over it.

[Scuba_Steve]

I'm not trying to dispute that (take a look at a 6 year old gaming PC), but does anyone here know why that is?

yep overhead, mainly DirectX. PC's don't have standardized components & don't have direct access to them they have to go through API's (DirectX or OpenGL) which adds overhead however every con has a pro & while PC's are limited to about 2-3000 geometry chunks as against 10-20000 for consoles DirectX does allow PC's to repeat the same object over & over without any extra overhead whereas console can't do that but do have 10x more geometry chucks to play with & thus can have more variety onscreen at once not just the same thing repeated many times.
So if PC's could direct access components they would be very powerful indeed (upto 20x more powerful) but way less reliable than current as devs could never account for everybody's individual setup & thus we are stuck with the necessary evils like DirectX.

[SMOKEU]

yep overhead, mainly DirectX. PC's don't have standardized components & don't have direct access to them they have to go through API's (DirectX or OpenGL) which adds overhead however every con has a pro & while PC's are limited to about 2-3000 geometry chunks as against 10-20000 for consoles DirectX does allow PC's to repeat the same object over & over without any extra overhead whereas console can't do that but do have 10x more geometry chucks to play with & thus can have more variety onscreen at once not just the same thing repeated many times.
So if PC's could direct access components they would be very powerful indeed (upto 20x more powerful) but way less reliable than current as devs could never account for everybody's individual setup & thus we are stuck with the necessary evils like DirectX.

Has that got anything to do with why games often perform poorly as a guest in a VM as opposed to the host?

[Scuba_Steve]

Has that got anything to do with why games often perform poorly as a guest in a VM as opposed to the host?

alot of performance issues in VM come down to the VM being extra overhead in itself, your running an OS within an OS & I'm not sure quite how they work but yes I'd assume they'd have to pass through double the API's too

[slofox]

Just harking back to the OP, I had the exact same scenario with the work computer on Friday - fired it up and it stalled at the BIOS screen. Just as the home puter had done.

So. I figured what worked at home ought to work on this one too. Unplugged everything, took off the side panel, unclipped the Ram modules, jiggled them around a bit and refastened the clips. Hook back up and switch on. Bingo, all started as normal.

I reckon it's a plot - a PLOT I say A PLOT :wacko::crazy: oooops...hehehe I mean...:o

[ducatilover]

Just harking back to the OP, I had the exact same scenario with the work computer on Friday - fired it up and it stalled at the BIOS screen. Just as the home puter had done.

So. I figured what worked at home ought to work on this one too. Unplugged everything, took off the side panel, unclipped the Ram modules, jiggled them around a bit and refastened the clips. Hook back up and switch on. Bingo, all started as normal.

I reckon it's a plot - a PLOT I say A PLOT :wacko::crazy: oooops...hehehe I mean...:o

My mate's mother had exactly the same problem a few weeks ago and I fixed it in exactly the same way :laugh:
It must be a corrupt pathway or code thingy stuck in the RAM and disconnecting it from power = win.
Sheep are far superior, I can always get my boot up them.

[Gremlin]

Has that got anything to do with why games often perform poorly as a guest in a VM as opposed to the host?
:facepalm: While VM software has come along a long way, they are not designed to run games. While you can usually get good access to the hardware, your disk is a virtual disk (unless you're passing through a physical disk) and all the performance hits that come with that.

[slofox]

Sheep are far superior, I can always get my boot up them.

As long as it's only your boot mate...:whistle: