# ASUS P4P800s-x Hang on Boot Up



## ChuckB0612 (Nov 12, 2004)

I am new to this forum, but I have been reading quite a few of the posts on ASUS motherboards and I have LEARNED a lot. Expecially from the Cliff guy, WOW he's great. Thanks..

Anyhow, I just recently purchased a system with a P4P800S-x motherboard, P4 3.0ghz, 800 mhz FSB, I have 1GB RAM, 1 80GB WD SATA, 1 Sony DVD drive (2nd IDE master) and a 40 GB WD PATA (primary IDE master), plus an external MAxtor 120GB USB drive and other USB devices, 350W PSU, 848 Intel chipset.

Here is the problem: Every morning when I start up my machine it hangs at POST at the last ATA drive---> 3RD IDE device (which would be the SATA boot drive) with Windows XP Pro SP2. The only way I can get the machine to boot into windows is to hit the reset button then it takes off. And subsequent reboots will be fine as well. Only happens if the machine starts cold after 4 hrs or more of no use.

I have the most recent BIOS (sept 2004) I believe is the date and version is 1005. In the BIOS I made sure the Primary+Secondard slave are configured as NOT INSTALLED and I have jumpered the DVD drive and WD HDD as (CS=Cable select). In the boot priority section I made sure the SATA drive is the first one, I have turned HT on and off, don't seem to make a differnce. And I believe I left just about all the other BIOS settings at their defaults. 

I think the video card I have is an Nvidia GEforce 256 RAM. 

I am thinking --- maybe a PSU issue? Or an IRQ conflict of some sort. I am really puzzled. As far as performance goes -- I would expect it to be more snappy than it is. I am not a gamer just a basic user per se..I did check out Cliff's article about running the Intel Utility and making sure nothing shows up as standard devices, and I have none there, so it appears to be all the current Intel drivers.

Looking forward to some suggestions. Thanks.


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> I have the most recent BIOS (sept 2004) I believe is the date and version is 1005.


Actually the latest BIOS is from October 2004, and may be found here v1005A. The fix description says "Patch boot failure problem." No further detail, and there are no FAQs about your issue, but maybe this "boot failure" could be your problem. 

BTW it also says to use the .EXE that the BIOS is packaged as, to do the install. Don't use any other tool like regular AFUDOS. Just stick the EXE on a DOS boot floppy, boot, and run the EXE.





> Here is the problem: Every morning when I start up my machine it hangs at POST at the last ATA drive---> 3RD IDE device (which would be the SATA boot drive) with Windows XP Pro SP2. The only way I can get the machine to boot into windows is to hit the reset button then it takes off.


The next thing that happens is USB storage. The POST output goes like this:

*3rd Master: Maxtor 6Y160M0 YAR51BW0
Ultra DMA Mode-5, S.M.A.R.T. Capable and Status OK
Auto-Detecting USB Mass Storage Devices...
00 USB mass storage devices found and configured.*

but in your case that should be 01 USB devices. I think the system may be struggling with your external USB drive.





> maybe a PSU issue? Or an IRQ conflict of some sort.


Probably not IRQ... today's systems care little about IRQ. 

Could well be a PSU issue: 350W is way low for this mobo series, especially with as many drives as you've got. The drives may be struggling to spin up in time. And resetting hits the drives while they're already spinning from the first attempt.





> Looking forward to some suggestions.


Well I can't read the P4P800S-X manual, as the only ones available for download are in Chinese. SO any discussion of BIOS is based on the non-X manual...

But one idea is you may have forgotten to change your system's "Plug and Play OS" BIOS setting to No, which is what you want for XP. You might have to reinstall the OS if you change this, I'm not sure. I definitely would not switch the HT setting from the way you had it at install time.

Another thing you may also want to do is go into the BIOS Advanced- USB Configuration- USB Mass Storage Configuration screen. There, run the "USB Mass Storage Reset Delay" up or down to see if it helps. But I really have no experience with USB hard drives, so I have little advice to give you here.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## ChuckB0612 (Nov 12, 2004)

Thanks a whole bunch...Your suggestions are great and make a lot a sense. The reason I say that is because this morning before starting up my PC I unplgged the USB hub I have with 4 devices plugged into it and the machine got further than usual, but it hung on the blank screen just before the Windows XP load screen with the cursor flashing in the upper left hand corner.

So I think I will upgrade the power supply. What would you suggest for a PSU?

Thanks for your reply...

CB


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> it hung on the blank screen just before the Windows XP load screen with the cursor flashing in the upper left hand corner.


That's one of the transient states it goes through, even Windows 98 did this. Usually it will pause here only for a couple seconds, then the cursor should disappear and startup continues. I think it's getting ready to set up the I/O here, but I'm not really sure. 

Having it hang here is real real common if there's anything wrong with setting up the I/O devices. On Windows 98SE it I think used to hang here if there was no LAN signal, so I always had to at least hook up a hub.





> So I think I will upgrade the power supply. What would you suggest for a PSU?


Well I sound like a broken record, but I'll suggest what I usually do. You have a 3.0G CPU, I'll assume it's a Prescott. You have one optical, 2 HDD's, and some RAM and video. With only 1 optical and 2 HDD's or 2 opticals and 1 HDD I'd normally say 430W would be the minimum but with the Prescott I'd go at least 480W.

If your CPU is actually a Northwood, the Antec TruePower 480W will do you nicely. But if the CPU is Prescott (3.0E) or if you think you might add more devices later on, then I'd suggest you get the 550W model. I say the Antec is superior because it uses 3 voltage regulation sections --one for each of the 12/5/3.3 sections-- instead of the customary 2; this gives better stability overall, no cross-loading. These are all gut-feel recommendations based on my own two rigs, and on what we've seen around this forum since your mobo series came out.

Remember, buying a 550W supply doesn't mean you'll always draw 550W from the wall socket. What it does mean is that when those load spikes come --and they will-- you'll be able to handle them better with a 550W than with something lower.

Hope this helps,

-clintfan


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## ChuckB0612 (Nov 12, 2004)

:sad: Sounds good to me about the PSU's, all makes sense to me. Will probably replace it. 

Overall, I expected this system to perform much faster than it does. I don't have many things starting up when the machine boots. It seems to be very sluggish when on the web, I thought maybe the onboard LAN was a problem so I got a Linksys PCI ethernet NIC and it didn't seem to make a difference (I did disable the onboard LAN card). 

Once in a while I do get system hangs and the only thing I can do is hit the reset button, it's totally locked up. Then it won't happen for half a day or so. Not sure if that is related to power issues or not. 

The PIII 1GB Dell machine I had before this new machine I gave to my roommate (which I reinitialized) seems to perform much better now than my new machine, I don't get it....

If you have any suggestions as far checking items to boost performance but be very helpful....Thanks for all your help..

Chuck


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

> The PIII 1GB Dell machine I had before this new machine I gave to my roommate (which I reinitialized) seems to perform much better now than my new machine, I don't get it.... If you have any suggestions as far checking items to boost performance but be very helpful....


Not really. Only that I'll bet that PIII wasn't running XP, now was it? There's a big chunk of the difference right there. The older the OS, the more "trim" it is, and therefore faster. The platforms of the day were well-matched to their OS's. A 350MHz PII at work was very snappy running NT4, but is a laughably painful _dog_ running XP Pro. I think I'll leave my dual PII/450 on NT4.

"Reinitializing" a PC --i.e. putting on that Restore disk-- does tend to get rid f all the accumulated junk and make it run just like it did out of the box, only maybe better if it, say, has more memory now.

Outside of the usual suggestions to get rid of unnecessary background tasks via uninstall, settings changes, or msconfig; make sure your OS is on the fastest I/O path possible, etc. I'll be of little help. Got my own random performance problems here on my screamer... like 10 seconds to launch Excell, 45 seconds to launch Acrobat 6, etc. The Windows XP forum suggests others have the same trouble and there are no solutions yet.

-clintfan


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## ChuckB0612 (Nov 12, 2004)

Thanks for all your help Clintfan, you have really been a big help. I should have come here first and built my own PC from all the advise here instead of buying my machine at a computer show. First of all, I never gave the power supply a thought. But I am upgrading my machine from a 350W PSU to a Antec 550, maybe that will get solve some of my hang issues in Windows. the ASUS probe does show the +12v line at about 11.3 and the cpu temp at 58 C.

I will post back with results.

BTW---that PIII 1GB machine/512 RAM was and is now on Windows XP Pro, Dell had not tested XP on this mb, they would not support issues if XP was installed. I had read in the Dell forums of folks who did install XP without issue, so I did the same. But the machine is running 1 HDD, 2 CDrw drives and one USB device -- mouse. So there isn't a large draw.

Thanks again...


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## clintfan (Sep 4, 2003)

Hey there's a new v1007 BIOS posted on the P4P800S-X download site as of a couple weeks ago, something about a hang during reboot.

-clintfan


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## tiguy4755 (Nov 20, 2004)

First, sorry for my English; I'm a French-Canadien.

I'm pretty sure your problem is not related with the PSU... Here is my situation:
1) I always use SPI high-end 300Watts power supply, even with Prescott 2.8e/3.0e CPU.
2) I built about 10 PC with P4P800-DX and P4P800-E-DX mobo AND WD Sata HDD. They all work perfectly.
3) I tried this new P4P800S-X mobo with P-ATA HDD, they all work perfectly. That's why I eleminate the PSU as a possible cause of the problem.

Than, I tried this new P4P800S-X mobo with WD800JD SATA (80Gb) and the problem starts here:
- Hang in Windows; every time with the HDD LED lighted up; Windows freeze; Here a "KLANG" from the disk at the time of the freezing; mouse working for 5 seconds and hang; not even task manager is working.
- Reboot; redo the same maneuver that caused the problem and it's now working.
- Let a DVD play for few minutes/hour, same freezing problem.
- This problem occurs on 3 different computers with the same mobo and HDD. Replaced with 4 differents HDD and 4 differents mobos and keep having this issue.
- I reinstall the WinXP (home and Pro) 2 or 3 times on these computers.
- I replace: PSU, RAM, video card, CD-Rom and keep getting the error.
- I found in the event manager a tons of "event ID - 51 Warning" about the HDD controller; that may happen.
- Every time it freeze, I receive some "event ID - 11 ERROR" about the HDD controller that cause corruptions to the drive.
- I than tried to clone the installed OS on a spare drive but I keep receiving "Wrtite error" on the drive to be cloned with Ghost 2003 !?!? That one I don't understand.

It really look like an issue with this generation of mobo... maybe the chipset (I848 I think). I ordered some P4P800-X (I865PE) to test my theory. I already sent an email to WD and Asus regarding this issue.

In conclusion, I used many WD800JD and many board Asus but this combination of P4P800S-X and this drive make me feel uncomfortable. 

I'll keep you inform of Asus/WD replies and for the test I'll do.


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## tiguy4755 (Nov 20, 2004)

Here is a follow up of owhat I did:
1) Unplugged SATA HD and plugged P-ATA HD.
2) Install brand new OS on this P-ATA HD. Install every software and drivers.
3) Set BIOS to Enhanced mode P-ATA+SATA.

Here is where trouble start again:
4) Plugged back my SATA HD on SATA chain #2.
5) Tried to copy all from this SATA to a C:\BACKUP folder on my P-ATA HD. I heard the "KLANG" noise and it freeze during copy. It added an event ID - 11 on the \DEVICE\HardDisk1\D (HardDisk0 is my OS on P-ATA, HardDisk1 is my data on SATA).
6) I reboot, tried to copy the missing file (was only missing C:\WINDOWS\) to my C:\BACKUP folder; same problem, Windows hang.
7) I reboot again, didn't do anything and I heard this "KLANG" again but this time, Windows was not frozen since I didn't do any access to the SATA HD... Kept running for a few minutes and as soon as I tried to access this SATA drive, Windows hang.

I unplugged the SATA to only keep the P-ATA; still running.


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## ChuckB0612 (Nov 12, 2004)

*Thanks for Reply*

I am sorry I haven't responded. I really appreciate your responses. I am French-Canadien as well, but haven't written/read French in quite a while. Speaking is a little rusty, ut I can manage.

Anyhow, now that you mention it, I did try doing a large copy at one point from my SATA drive to the PATA and I got a lock up and I did hear that KLUNKING noise you talk about. I will have to check my Event Viewer as well to see if I have the same error. I knew when I had this machine built that I should have said NO to WD, I have had nothing but problems in the past with WD IDE drives, always stayed with Maxtor...

Anyhow, I did upgrade my system with a 550 Antec PSU and at least now the machine doesn't hang on boot up, goes through POST the first time from a cold boot with no problem, so I think it did have a +12V issue with the 350 PSU I had, voltages now look OK in ASUS Probe. 

After I installed the new PSU I connected the 2nd case fan (only one was connected before) figuring I could get the CPU to run cooler, but no, I am still getting 58-60C temps on the CPU...is this a real problem to run with this temp?

Do you really feel the problem could be my SATA WD 80 GB drive? Windows XP Pro hasn't been locking up but it is just not as snappy as it should be when opening windows and there are some pauses before a window opens quite frequently. Maybe I should move over to my 40GB PATA drive as my boot drive. Is it possible WD has a firmware upgrade for the drive?

What do you think?


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## tiguy4755 (Nov 20, 2004)

I didn't found any firmware for this drive since the begining of my search.

I used DLDIAG (dos version) from WD and did a "FULL WRITE ZERO" test. Every drive generate an ICRC 0115 ERROR at some point and do not complete the test. It didn't even have the time to write the result in the text file on the floppy. I tested these WD800JD drives on 3 others computers equiped with P4P800S-X and the same error are generated.

BUT, I test the same way every "defect" drive on a P4P800-E-DX and on the new P4P800-X and they all test good !!! These test has all been done on SATA2 port, the same boot disk, the same DLDIAG, every BIOS flashed to the latest. At this point, I'm returning every P4P800S-X that I have in stock and I'm replacing them with P4P800-X that are only 25$ higher but they support SATA drive perfectly...

At this point, I'm still waiting for Asus and WD to answer my email. I'll post back their answer (if there is one answer).

For the temp of your CPU, if it's a Prescott (3.0E - 1mb of cache), your case should have an opening facing your processor. You should put a fan there as an intake to blow fresh air directly on the processor... Just be sure to have this "Prescott Ready" case. I'll compare with the temperature of my PCs when I'll arrive to the office and post in here the result.


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## n.alex (Nov 30, 2004)

Hi.
I'm Alessandro and i'm italian. Sorry for my bad english!!!
I read your problem. I have the same problem and the same effects(hang up, event viewer....).
I have:
P4P800S-X, P43.0GHz (1ML2 cache), HDD SATA MATROX 160GB, DVD-RW NEC3500, DVD-ROM LG, VGA SAPPHIRE RADEON 128MB DDR, 2X512MB DDR400 and WinXP pro SP2.
Have you a good new from ASUS?
Thanks for all
Alessandro


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## tiguy4755 (Nov 20, 2004)

They didn't even answer my post yet. I still have the tracking number and I check it every days.

Since I got this problem, I replaced every board with P4P800-X that work perfectly.

For some of them, I replaced the SATA with P-ATA and the P4P800S-X work fine with this scenario.

I suggest you to return your P4P800S-X to your local store and ask them to do the same test. They will be able to return your board to their distributor and exchange it for the P4P800-X that will cost you about $18 US more.

Sorry that I can't help you more; Asus didn't help me at this time. I'm about to get rid of the last P4P800S-X and I won't be able to try the suggestions from Asus (if ther is some !).


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## ChuckB0612 (Nov 12, 2004)

Today I contacted the folks who built my PC and they are going to exchange the P4P800s-x with a P4P800SE (for $50 more) along with the memory, because I think it could be either the boards SATA controllers or it's a memory issue causing the boot up issues and the data corruption. I am still getting more data corruption. Now I am getting messages that some Windows system files are corrupt or missing on bootup (ntfs.sys), so Windows won't start.. After I do a fix booting with the WinXP disk it's ok for a while.

I prefer not getting another s-x brd, the SE has the 865 chipset as oppsoe to the 848 chipset on the s-x. 

Hope you have some luck with ASUS tech support. I will report back to let you know how I made out with the new brd. Doing all this on Saturday...

CB


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## Javora (Aug 24, 2003)

tiguy4755 said:


> At this point, I'm still waiting for Asus and WD to answer my email. I'll post back their answer (if there is one answer).


Just to give you a little insight on this topic. Whenever I dwelt with Asus tech support. I always opened a ticket number on Asus support forum and then called Asus on the phone once I wrote down the ticket number. It has been my experience that Asus will never respond to an Email or in their own support forum. But Asus phone support will help you once you have an open ticket number on their support forum. Hope this helps.


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## tiguy4755 (Nov 20, 2004)

ChuckB0612 said:


> Today I contacted the folks who built my PC and they are going to exchange the P4P800s-x with a P4P800SE (for $50 more) along with the memory, because I think it could be either the boards SATA controllers or it's a memory issue causing the boot up issues and the data corruption. I am still getting more data corruption. Now I am getting messages that some Windows system files are corrupt or missing on bootup (ntfs.sys), so Windows won't start.. After I do a fix booting with the WinXP disk it's ok for a while.


I suggest that you dump your partition and start Windows installation (NTFS formatting) all over again when your new mobo will be installed. Your files allocatin table may be damage and you'll keep getting error if you only try to repair your Windows installation. At some point, I was not even able to clone this SATA drive to another drive. It look like this mobo is creating "virtual bad sector" on the partition.

Thanks Javora for the hint about calling Asus AFTER creating a ticket.


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## smoothbooth (Dec 3, 2004)

*Similar Problem!*

Hey guys - I'm new here from sunny England!

I've got the ASUS K8V DELUXE mobo, 350watt PSU, Athlon 64 3000+, 2 optical drives,a radon 9600 and hopefully 2 HD's if I can get them working...

for ages I have been using my SATA drive with no probs. Recently, I've been runnin low on space and since I've got a 80gig ATA HD lying around I thought I might as well put it 2 use.
Ive made sure all jumpers are configured correctly and i tried to boot it; and my system booted off the ATA drive - After making the KLONK sound described earlier. SO I went into bios and if I force my PC to boot from the SATA i get the 

'00 USB mass storage devices found and configured' 

error upon boot up, after it tries to locate my drives. I dont know what the problem is. Could it be power? Its driving me up the wall.... :deveous: 

Cheers 


Oh yea, I realise that im on bout a different mobo, but the prolem sounds very similar - could ASUS have a similar problem on there other mobos? :sad: .,....


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## StellarWind (Dec 24, 2004)

First of all, sorry for my English, it's not my native language
-

I've got the computer built on *P4P800S-X* mobo (BIOS v.1007) with Celeron D 2.4GHz, Kingston 512Mb memory, ASUS nVIDIA GeForce 5200TD videocard, DVD TEAC DV-W512, CD NEC CD-3002, 300W PSU Inwin S506

and

*Serial ATA HDD* Maxtor 6Y080M0 80Gb

with which I have continuous problems.

I see error messages in system event log:
ID 11 - error on Device\Harddisk0\D.
Sometimes HDD switches from DMA mode to PIO, which heavily loads CPU while copying files.
Also I noticed that HDD heats up to 55C. When I tried to use HDD fan, the HDD temperature decreased of course, but the ID11 errors kept appearing in the event log.
When I plugged P-ATA HDD Maxtor, it worked fine (no ID11 errors), but heated up the same way. The same was with the S-ATA HDD Seagate.
I tried to use another power supply, but the problem remained.

When I plugged my S-ATA HDD Maxtor into another computer (with P4P800S-SE mobo), it worked fine, with no errors and overheating. 

This makes me think that the problem is not in the HDD, but in the mobo.
I'll try to replace my P4P800S-X with another one...


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## PeteC (Dec 21, 2004)

There are some very familiar problems coming out on this thread, I have a p4p800 deluxe, P4 3.0 prescott, 400wat psu, 2x 512 Kingston ram. 2x Maxtor SATA 160 gig & a PATA 80gig maxtor

Since upgrading to this cpu and mem I have had the clunking, freezing problem, typically it would get to the windows log on screen then the clunk then a few seconds later the screen freezes, oh and this tended to cause file corruption as well

The SATA drives got extremely hot within a few minutes whilst I was trying to get the thing to run, didn't measure the temp but too hot to keep your fingers on them although previously with a P4 2.4 gig northwood and one stick of ram they had never run excessively hot even when run continuously for several days.

I found that taking one memory stick out and running in single memory mode cured the lock-ups and the drives run at normal temp now.

I have come to the conclusion there may be memory timing problems on this board. Having tested the CPU, PSU, mem, in another machine they are OK and run memtest86 perfectly...but not in the P4p800 even with one stick of memory running at 400mg memtest86 will fail test 7 and 8 unless you reduce the memory clock speed to 320mg and with the slower memory clock it will even run in dual memory mode reliably.

I would suggest getting a copy of memtest86 as recommended elsewhere on this forum and checking this out, I would suspect the problem is memory related but could be the mobo not the modules.


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## as-us226 (Dec 27, 2004)

have you tried to replace your IDE(ATA) cable?
In my comp it helped.
Sorry for my bad english.


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## StellarWind (Dec 24, 2004)

*the problem is gone*

My p4p800s-x mobo now works well with Maxtor SATA HDD.
BIOS should be updated to version 1008 (released on 01/04/2005).
I think the mobo should work well with other SATA drives also.


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