Computer Freezing on Boot...

[ABTsportsline]

Hello,
This problem i'm having is unusual in that i haven't changed any of my hardware or anything and recently all of a sudden my computer is having boot issues. It freezes when its doing the "detecting IDE drives", before it lets me hit delete to enter setup or F2.... i can't even get into BIOS. It freezes right away. Even when i insert my Windows XP disk.... freezes before anything happens, right after the memory test.

Hardware: Athlon XP 2500 processor
Abit NF7-S board
OCZ 512 RAM
Radeon All-In-Wonder
Lite-On 52x CDRW
Sony DRU500A DVD-R/RW
Audigy 2 Platinum
Memory Card Reader
Windows XP Pro

I've had all these items for over a year now, no problems. Recently i have seen my computer randomly just reboot (no warning, just a click and the black screen from boot up), and when it recovers, gives me the warning that my computer has recovered from a critical system error. Then i click the link and it says something about a device driver caused this. But i haven't added any devices. The most recent thing i've added is the ipod and iTunes, but that was over 3 months ago. Why is it crashing now?

Anyway, any help is appreciated. I can't even get into BIOS, so at the moment i am absolutely helpless.

Thanks
-ABT-

 

[ABTsportsline]

also forgot to mention i have a western digital 120 Gb drive.... at about 70% capacity. drive was always nortoned, zone-alarmed, and ad-awared weekly. Defragged monthly.

 

[Jorsoft]

You've had your computer for over a year, right? Ideally you should backup and reformat every 6 months or so. That would fix any hardware problems and keep trouble like this from occuring.

Do you Scandisk your harddrive? Do a Thorough scan on it if you don't already. It'll take forever but maybe you've just got some damaged sectors or something.

It could be your motherboard/BIOS that's the problem, too. You could update your BIOS to the latest version, but I'm not enough of an exopert to say if that's the problem itself.

 

[bubbleboy255]

AMD BIOS

Are you sure your CMOS is set to the correct speed for your processor?

I've seen CMOS freeze upon boot when AMDs aren't set right.

Since you can't even get into CMOS, open it up and use the CMOS CLEAR pin. That should let you get back into CMOS, and adjust the right speed - assuming that this is the problem...

 

[bubbleboy255]

One more thing

Also - it is always a good idea to remove all extra hardware not needed. Once you got the system up and running on the basics - then you can start adding things back on, one at a time. This will help you find out which peripheral is causing the problem.

Take out:
Audigy 2 Platinum
Memory Card Reader
USB devices (use PS/2 keyboard)

I'd even go as far as unplugging HD and CDROM - until you're able to get into CMOS.