775dual-VSTA can cold boot but not restart

Hi,

When my sons elderly Compaq died just before Xmas I built a new PC
based on a 775dual-VSTA. I reused the old AGP graphics card (5200) and
the old IDE disks. My plan is to upgrade piece by piece. CPU is a
Pentium 4 3Ghz. OS is XP SP2 with latest updates via auto-update

All has been working fine, and is working OK. However I installed some
XP updates and I noticed the PC didn't reboot after a restart. This
may be a coincidence, normal use does not involve many restarts as
opposed starts from cold.If I try a restart I don't
see the the nVidia 5200 banner (normally first thing) or the BIOS
messages on the screen. I
have a green light on power and a solid red light on the disk access.
The CDROM light does flicker, but I don't appear to be able to boot of
a bootable CD image.

In desperation I disconnected everything and took a look inside. All
looked fine. Reconnected and powered up, and booted perfectly (though
BIOS recognised an unsuccessful boot had previously occurred).

I can reproduce this. If I restart the PC appears to hang prior to the
graphics card declaring itself. However if I start from cold (power
off at the wall) it starts fine.

I'm pretty sure that it used to restart OK. It's has autoupdate for
XP running, and has the latest nvidia drivers and directX.

I have not updated the BIOS, as I'm reluctant to and don't have a
floppy drive so it looks a bit complex

Any suggestions. I guess it could be the wires from the motherboard to
the frontpanel power/reset buttons ?

Two other things that are a bit odd. If I plug the Optical USB mouse
in via an adaptor and the mini-din connector, the red light stays on
as long as the PC is connected to mains electricity. When used via USB
light goes out when PC shuts down. The other odd thing is I have a new
USB keyboard with a blue glow backlight. The light persists for quite
a while after reboot. Perhaps nothing to do with it, but I wondered if
rebooting somehow fails to recognise mouse/keyboard.

ANy suggestions gratefully received

"jives11" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi,

When my sons elderly Compaq died just before Xmas I built a new PC
based on a 775dual-VSTA. I reused the old AGP graphics card (5200) and
the old IDE disks. My plan is to upgrade piece by piece. CPU is a
Pentium 4 3Ghz. OS is XP SP2 with latest updates via auto-update

All has been working fine, and is working OK. However I installed some
XP updates and I noticed the PC didn't reboot after a restart. This
may be a coincidence, normal use does not involve many restarts as
opposed starts from cold.If I try a restart I don't
see the the nVidia 5200 banner (normally first thing) or the BIOS
messages on the screen. I
have a green light on power and a solid red light on the disk access.
The CDROM light does flicker, but I don't appear to be able to boot of
a bootable CD image.

In desperation I disconnected everything and took a look inside. All
looked fine. Reconnected and powered up, and booted perfectly (though
BIOS recognised an unsuccessful boot had previously occurred).

I can reproduce this. If I restart the PC appears to hang prior to the
graphics card declaring itself. However if I start from cold (power
off at the wall) it starts fine.

I'm pretty sure that it used to restart OK. It's has autoupdate for
XP running, and has the latest nvidia drivers and directX.

I have not updated the BIOS, as I'm reluctant to and don't have a
floppy drive so it looks a bit complex

Any suggestions. I guess it could be the wires from the motherboard to
the frontpanel power/reset buttons ?

Two other things that are a bit odd. If I plug the Optical USB mouse
in via an adaptor and the mini-din connector, the red light stays on
as long as the PC is connected to mains electricity. When used via USB
light goes out when PC shuts down. The other odd thing is I have a new
USB keyboard with a blue glow backlight. The light persists for quite
a while after reboot. Perhaps nothing to do with it, but I wondered if
rebooting somehow fails to recognise mouse/keyboard.

ANy suggestions gratefully received


OK, first load default settings (NOT 'optimized' or 'performance' default
settings) in BIOS. If that doesn't work, see if your mainboard has a
clear_CMOS jumper and set that to clear position for about 15 seconds (then
put it back to normal position). If you don't have that jumper, remove the
CMOS button battery for about 15 minutes, then reinstall it. If this
doesn't help the restarting issue, then as a last resort you should use
windows restore to restore your system to a point about a month ago (or
shortly after you built it, whichever is later). If that doesn't work, post
here again to let us know if anything has changed at all, so we'll have more
symptoms to try to logic this one out with.

It's not a wiring problem.

The red light staying on when mouse is connected to mini-din connector is
probably normal. Most current motherboards have some kind of power on by
mouse / power on by keyboard functions. So power needs to go to those input
devices, if they are detected. SOME motherboards even allow you to power on
by USB mouse or keyboard. That's cool.

My wife has one of those backlit blue glow USB keyboard thingies. We love
it. The backlight is very unpredictable during boot process though, it
seems to have a mind of it's own. After windows starts, we have full
control of the illumination/backlight, which is ON by default. So I'm
saying you should ignore the USB backlit keyboard, that is not a problem,
and not a symptom of a problem either. -Dave

On 28 Feb, 13:00, "Mike T." wrote:
"jives11" wrote in message

ups.com...



Hi,

When my sons elderly Compaq died just before Xmas I built a new PC
based on a 775dual-VSTA. I reused the old AGP graphics card (5200) and
the old IDE disks. My plan is to upgrade piece by piece. CPU is a
Pentium 4 3Ghz. OS is XP SP2 with latest updates via auto-update

All has been working fine, and is working OK. However I installed some
XP updates and I noticed the PC didn't reboot after a restart. This
may be a coincidence, normal use does not involve many restarts as
opposed starts from cold.If I try a restart I don't
see the the nVidia 5200 banner (normally first thing) or the BIOS
messages on the screen. I
have a green light on power and a solid red light on the disk access.
The CDROM light does flicker, but I don't appear to be able to boot of
a bootable CD image.

In desperation I disconnected everything and took a look inside. All
looked fine. Reconnected and powered up, and booted perfectly (though
BIOS recognised an unsuccessful boot had previously occurred).

I can reproduce this. If I restart the PC appears to hang prior to the
graphics card declaring itself. However if I start from cold (power
off at the wall) it starts fine.

I'm pretty sure that it used to restart OK. It's has autoupdate for
XP running, and has the latest nvidia drivers and directX.

I have not updated the BIOS, as I'm reluctant to and don't have a
floppy drive so it looks a bit complex

Any suggestions. I guess it could be the wires from the motherboard to
the frontpanel power/reset buttons ?

Two other things that are a bit odd. If I plug the Optical USB mouse
in via an adaptor and the mini-din connector, the red light stays on
as long as the PC is connected to mains electricity. When used via USB
light goes out when PC shuts down. The other odd thing is I have a new
USB keyboard with a blue glow backlight. The light persists for quite
a while after reboot. Perhaps nothing to do with it, but I wondered if
rebooting somehow fails to recognise mouse/keyboard.

ANy suggestions gratefully received

OK, first load default settings (NOT 'optimized' or 'performance' default
settings) in BIOS. If that doesn't work, see if your mainboard has a
clear_CMOS jumper and set that to clear position for about 15 seconds (then
put it back to normal position). If you don't have that jumper, remove the
CMOS button battery for about 15 minutes, then reinstall it. If this
doesn't help the restarting issue, then as a last resort you should use
windows restore to restore your system to a point about a month ago (or
shortly after you built it, whichever is later). If that doesn't work, post
here again to let us know if anything has changed at all, so we'll have more
symptoms to try to logic this one out with.

It's not a wiring problem.

The red light staying on when mouse is connected to mini-din connector is
probably normal. Most current motherboards have some kind of power on by
mouse / power on by keyboard functions. So power needs to go to those input
devices, if they are detected. SOME motherboards even allow you to power on
by USB mouse or keyboard. That's cool.

My wife has one of those backlit blue glow USB keyboard thingies. We love
it. The backlight is very unpredictable during boot process though, it
seems to have a mind of it's own. After windows starts, we have full
control of the illumination/backlight, which is ON by default. So I'm
saying you should ignore the USB backlit keyboard, that is not a problem,
and not a symptom of a problem either. -Dave

Many Thanks Dave.

Well the problem seems to be fixed. I concur with your comments about
the mouse/keyboard. I found an old pair with mini-dins and booted up
and saw the same problems.

I then revisited the ASrock website. Previously I had discounted
flashing the BIOS as it looked hard and appeared to need a boot
floppy. I realised I'd been an idiot and there was also a windows
native tool, to flash the bios.

I also noticed that there had been a fairly large number of releases,
so in a rush of blood to the head, I reflashed it. Actually pretty
painless.

I then rebooted and did an F2 and reloaded the default BIOS settings
(I note from your explanation this may have been all that was
necessary anyhow)

Note only did it boot (phew) but it now appears to reboot too


So, many thanks for responding. You may well have hit the nail on the
head with the BIOS settings needing to be reset to defaults . I now
have a rebooting/restarting PC with the latest BIOS too.

Thanks

So, many thanks for responding. You may well have hit the nail on the
head with the BIOS settings needing to be reset to defaults . I now
have a rebooting/restarting PC with the latest BIOS too.

Thanks


Cool. -Dave