Restart Hangs, Power Down and Power Up Work Fine - XP SP3

Question

BACKGROUND

I'm Running Win XP SP3. I can power down fine. I can power up fine.

PROBLEM

Restart (warmboot) hangs.

SYMPTOMS

The HDD LED blinks on and off about twice a second. This is a continuous blinking. If I do not touch the system, blinking eventually stops. The computer sits in a hung state.

Also, when I do a cold boot, the monitor gets no signal. No BIOS info is displayed. Signal only occurs once disk is read.

QUESTIONS

Is this indicative of a software or hardware problem? How do I fix this problem?

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

"power down and power up works" indicates that it is a software related problem. Did you install new software, twist your system or anything else?

Answer 2

This sounds it might be a problem with the BIOS. Have you updated the BIOS and/or firmware from the manufacturer's website? If the computer is a brand-name, then they will have it, otherwise, check with the motherboard manufacturer.

Answer 3

Thanks for the responses. BTW, computer is 8 years old. It uses an AGP video card.

New Information: During an F2 (enter BIOS settings) operation, which produces only DOS text, no signal present to monitor. Swapped to an LCD monitor -- same result. This suggests a problem with video card. Opened case, and found video card fan frozen. Think it's been like that for a while. Think the 640x480 mode is shot. When video drivers start to load, signal is presented to the display.

I've seen video cards lock a system on cold boot, but not on a warmboot with video already present. We have 3 of these machines in the office, but no one could spare their video card for a test.

Removed HD and attached to another system as a second drive. Drive works fine. Am retiring the obsolete machine, and scavenging it for parts.

Thanks for your help. Both answers were on the right trail, (1) a software problem (2) a BIOS problem (albeit, video BIOS).