PCFormat Forum Archive

Howzit guys and gurls

I've got a problem with a workstation. I installed Windows XP (yes we still use it for our production software ) on the workstation and it's been running fine.

Client comes back after say 6 months and say the pc take about 30min to start up. He brings the pc around and I check and true as nuts, the pc does take that long.

It boots, but then after the running Windows XP logo when it's supposed to go to the windows login screen (domain pc's), it "freezes" on that black screen. EVENTUALLY after roughly 30min, the pc starts up and acts normal.

I've tried everything (everything I could think of). Removed and installed RAM modules one by one. Removed all PCI cards, did a diagnostic start-up from msconfig, but nothing helped. It still does it.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Back up.
Format.
Reinstall.


Any reason why you didn't do that already

IcePick88 wrote:Howzit guys and gurls

I've got a problem with a workstation. I installed Windows XP (yes we still use it for our production software ) on the workstation and it's been running fine.

Client comes back after say 6 months and say the pc take about 30min to start up. He brings the pc around and I check and true as nuts, the pc does take that long.

It boots, but then after the running Windows XP logo when it's supposed to go to the windows login screen (domain pc's), it "freezes" on that black screen. EVENTUALLY after roughly 30min, the pc starts up and acts normal.

I've tried everything (everything I could think of). Removed and installed RAM modules one by one. Removed all PCI cards, did a diagnostic start-up from msconfig, but nothing helped. It still does it.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Plug the HDD with XP into another machine, with a Windows operating system. Think it's something about the filesystem that got corrupted which another functional Windows OS can fix. It's all very hazy. Just an idea / vague memory drifting about in my head. Try it.

SykomantiS wrote:Back up.
Format.
Reinstall.


Any reason why you didn't do that already

I'm going with syko on this one, it's the easiest way, and it will hopefully solve the problem

Startin up in safe mode might give an indication of where the problem lies. If it takes long in booting into safe mode check what file is the one holding up the boot process. If it boots fast into safe mode check the system logs.

hiccup in DNS/AD registration or policy application?.

verify no static IP, spend some time checking AD traffic and DNS registration or...

Spoiler (show)

rustypup wrote:hiccup in DNS/AD registration or policy application?.

verify no static IP, spend some time checking AD traffic and DNS registration or...

Spoiler (show)

I'm leaning towards something like that as well, but I have the pc here with me and no network connected but it still has the symptoms. All our pc's on our network has static IP's though. It's a production network.
What I also noticed is, when it's at that black screen, you can ping the machine.

What makes this so damn hard is the time between reboots. 30+min after "trying" something.

Ok, so I analyzed the boot sequence.

CPU usage, disk usage, disk I/O, drivers ect ect.

You can see from the drivers and cpu and some other things there is activity during POST, but then it goes dark in all the areas, except in the CPU dept. This processor has 4 cores, but one core (Core 0) jumps to 100% usage during the whole "waiting time". After that, I can see everything that starts up, all the disk activity ect.

So something is eating at my CPU when it "boots". Did some more digging and found ntkrnlpa.exe take up 92% of that 100%.

Google did not help. I found one website relating to the HAL's, but I cannot see how that could help me.
I then tried disabling multi core and HT in the BIOS, still hangs there.

I've formatted this machine once before because of this, but it's not long, then it's back to it's business.

Is this of any help?
It seems it's related to kb890859
Try uninstalling that update, see if it helps.

SykomantiS wrote:Is this of any help?
It seems it's related to kb890859
Try uninstalling that update, see if it helps.

Checked it out. Doesn't look like it.

I've googled that ntkrnlpa.exe and found something relating to the boot.ini file. I see in the boot.ini file it has the /noexecute=optin and /fastdetect paramaters. I'll remove those and see what happens.

This is a weird one...

Well, if you have that update installed, and if all else fails, and even if it doesn't look like it, just try uninstalling it.
Last resort. Use it, don't use it...

Good luck though.

Can you try and disable the NIC?

SykomantiS wrote:Well, if you have that update installed, and if all else fails, and even if it doesn't look like it, just try uninstalling it.
Last resort. Use it, don't use it...

Good luck though.

Thanks. Will do when I'm have pulled out all my hair. LOL!

Bladerunner wrote:Can you try and disable the NIC?

I will do that once the machine is up again. So far it's a nice 44min between boot times.

I have to ask a really dumb question - so bear with me.

My Win XP keeps all the Service Pack files. Is there any danger in deleting them?

Disk Cleanup should remove those if you tell it do. The only consequence of note is that you'll then be unable to uninstall the service pack without a full wipe and reinstall.

Well that is no problem as it has been running really well - never needed to do an rollback.

pleasure kbye