posted
You guys have been great in the past, looking for ideas on my latest issues.
So basically my computer won't start in normal mode, only safe mode. It gets a blue screen of death during startup. I'm currently running Vista.
The computer has never been particularly reliable. From the day I got it, it would lock up every week or so with a blue screen. These would typically say IRLQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. I've googled this message a few times, and while I find a ton of stuff, its hard to sift through to find the actual issue relevant to me. I thought that upgrading to Windows 7 might help (after HP sent the free upgrade disk), but it didn't. After my last reformatting, I just left it on Vista. I meant to re-upgrade eventually, but hadn't gotten around to it.
In the past week, however, its also started to just randomly restart without any blue-screen. Typically when in the middle of playing a game. Then this morning, it crashed and was unable to start normally. Currently I am getting "STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}" every time, though I've gotten a few other messages as well before it settled on that one.
First thing I tried was to let windows do its "startup repair", but that just ended up telling me that there was nothing it could repair.
I was able to bring it up in safe mode, and based on some google results I tried uninstalling the video card driver. After I did that it started up normally okay, though with very low resolution.
I then downloaded the ATI driver software and installed it, and restarted my computer. BAM, back to blue screens of death.
So it seems I can bring it up in normal mode, so long as I don't have my video card driver installed. Does that mean that something is wrong with my video card or something?
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I've run the HP diagnostic tools available on startup and they all passed. I also tried the windows memory testing, and that detected no problems.
The only next step I can think of is to restore to the factory image, though I'd rather not do that if I can avoid it.
I could also try upgrading to Windows 7 while my video card driver is uninstalled, then try and install it again after the upgrade?
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I suspect I have a bad motherboard (though this may be unrelated to the startup issue). This is because a couple of weeks ago I got a letter from the HP Elite Desktop Settlement Administrator. Apparently there is a class action lawsuit about how these models are defective and prone to failures. The settlement HP and the lawyers have reached is that if you get a blue screen of death in a 90 day period, you get a replacement motherboard. Or if you paid to have your computer fixed by HP or an HP authorized so and so, they reimburse you.
The lawsuit settlement is going to take a while though it seems, and I'd love to get past this now if I could. I've got work to do this weekend that would necessitate a working development workstation.
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Thanks for any help in this matter!
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Just thought of something else. Have you checked to see if HP has a customized ATI driver that corrects issues with your particular system? I had a similar issue with the sound card in an old Dell.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I just updated the BIOS, and no improvement. Haven't checked on custom ATI drivers, guess I'll take a look.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
If that doesn't work, then I hate to say it, but you're probably out of luck. Clearly it's an issue HP has had trouble fixing. There may not be a solution at all, short of replacing the motherboard. You could try another video card.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
After shutting it down, I opened it up to take a look. I touched the video card, and it was extremely hot.
Earlier this week the video card fan was getting really loud, and I wonder if it stopped spinning entirely. Maybe it got too hot and got fried or something?
I'm going to wait until it cools down, then start it back up with the case open and see if the fan spins at all.
Added: looks like HP has an NVidia driver on their site for my computer, but not an ATI one.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Ah. Yeah, overheating would definitely cause those errors. While you're in there, you should remove the card, spray some air in there, and then re-seat the card. Couldn't hurt.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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To be honest with you that error is most commonly caused by a bad motherboard. I had the same issue with an ECS motherboard a couple of years ago. Took me forever to figure out what it was, and as soon as I swapped the motherboard I was fine. I gave the mobo to my brother and he installed it, and he got the same BSOD.
If the computer is still under warranty I'd call HP to let them know. If not, I hope the Mobo isn't proprietary. If it is not you should be able to pick up another motherboard and throw it in there.
Oh, and I wouldn't worry about the heat of your video cards. I run 3 cards in my machine right now (GTX 460's) and they are ALWAYS super hot to the touch. This is pretty normal for most cards, especially late model cards.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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Sure enough, the fan was dead on my existing video card. After I'd given it time to cool down, my computer started just fine. So it seems that mystery (the boot issue) has been solved.
I bought a random $100 new GPU (VisionTek HD 5450) at Best Buy, since I've had bad luck in the past trying to replace a graphics card fan. With their 30 day return policy, I figured I could just return it if it sucked.
Well it does suck. I can start my computer just fine and such, but when I try and play World of Tanks my frame-rate is about 8fps on the settings I played with at over 30fps on the existing GPU. I installed the drivers that were on the disk, but still is crappy. Its a 2GB DDR3 card, which in theory is much more powerful than my previous one.
I'm going to do more research into what good budget video cards are out there, unless I can figure out why my new one is under-performing.
Added: I wonder if upgrading to Windows 7 would help.
posted
Hm. I would have said that the 5450 is a pretty decent budget card. It's not the card I'd personally buy, but it's not bad at its price point. (That said, if you paid $100 for it, there are better cards at that price point -- but I buy my graphics cards online, so my view of the pricing is probably distorted.) It sounds like the one you have is underperforming for some reason.
What was the card you replaced?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
It was an ATI Radeon HD 4650, with 512MB of RAM. Was what HP put in it when I bought my computer somewhere around two years ago. I may have paid something (50 bucks?) to upgrade it over the other option.
I could not get Windows 7 to upgrade last night. It says:
"Windows cannot copy files required for installation. The files may be corrupt or missing. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070017"
The Windows 7 disk had some gunk on it that I cleaned off. I wonder if the disk is too far damaged. I'm not sure if HP would replace the disk for me, though probably worth asking.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:I would have said that the 5450 is a pretty decent budget card. It's not the card I'd personally buy, but it's not bad at its price point. (That said, if you paid $100 for it, there are better cards at that price point -- but I buy my graphics cards online, so my view of the pricing is probably distorted.)
Yeah, me too, typically. I didn't want to wait for shipping to be able to play games this weekend, however, so I made an exception.
I've been looking at a few sites with benchmarks, and there are some very decent cards around 140-160. Is that a better price point, Tom?
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
It seems that the problem with buying a new video card at around 140 is that they all say they need 500-550W power supply, and mine looks to be 460W max. I don't know much about power supplies, but they also seem to have voltage and amp requirements that mine probably doesn't meet. Also they say they need 2 six pin power inputs, and my power supply only seems to have one.
So that adds on another 30-100 bucks, and more research .
As I go down to the 100 dollar prices range, there seem to be cards that don't list power supply requirements (at least not on NewEgg). I'm not sure if that's because they don't have the info, or because they don't need special power considerations.
The HD 5450 I got doesn't seem to have any sort of plug-in for power, I guess because it doesn't have a fan? (or just is less powerful and doesn't need more power?)
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
This may just be my opinion, but I think most power supply requirements for video cards are greatly overstated. I've got a GeForce 9800 GT running on a 300W PSU, but it recommends 400W. I've never had a problem.
quote:The HD 5450 I got doesn't seem to have any sort of plug-in for power, I guess because it doesn't have a fan? (or just is less powerful and doesn't need more power?)
The latter. Power connectors on higher-end cards supply extra power to the card's processor and memory, because the PCI-E slot can't provide it all by itself. Lower-end cards often don't need that extra power, and sometimes they also don't need fans because they can passively radiate the heat away, but the fan has nothing to do with the power connector.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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