19 replies to this topic

[TSWired]

I have a Core i7 build with an intel DX58SO motherboard (Win 7 Ultimate 64bit)that has two seperate issues.
Specs:
Mobo: Intel DX58SO
RAM: Corsair 6g (2gigs x 3)(XMP Prfoile 1 in BIOS)Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8D
Processors: Core i7 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz Extreme edition
SSD: OCV Vertex 2 90gig
GFX: SAPPHIRE 100269SR Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
Optical: 1 x Sony Optiarc DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model AD-7241S-0B LightScribe Support - OEM
1 x LG Black 6X Blu-ray Disc Burner & HD DVD-ROM Drive SATA Model GGW-H20L - OEM

The first happens when booting up; it takes about 30 seconds before it will start loading windows. I have done a bunch of searching online and haven't found any really good answers but it appears that it is "searching" for SATA devices. I have an OCV Vertex 2 SSD for the OS and Software (90gig if it matters) and a seperate WD Black HDD for data. Once it starts loading Windows it loads quickly (~15-20 seconds or so maybe faster). The thing that bothers me is that it takes longer overall to boot with the SSD than it used to take to load off of the spinning HDD.

The BIOS is set to AHC and the BIOS is the latest available, maybe there is an older more stable BIOS for this board I should downgrade to?

I have turned off all devices and ports that I am not using (serial, etc.) in the BIOS to try to speed up the POST/Boot process, to no avail.



In addition to that:

Just over about this last week I started getting a new error, so far I have only seen it happen in the morning. When I get up the PC is on (normally it is asleep overnight) and there is a black screen with wite lettering "BOOTMGR is Missing". I have done some research and I know I can do a repair from the Win 7 DVD, but I am wondering if I should given the following weird issue:

Pressing CTRL + Alt + Del reboots and after about 30 seconds the same message appears(this seems normal and expected given the error).

However, if I press the power button on the computer the system reboots and brings up the Improper Shutdown screen, after selecting Boot normally everything boots up fine. this seems odd to me and makes me suspect that somehow the SSD is not being powered up/that the system is trying to boot from the internal spinning HDD I use for data. I checked the BIOS and boot priority is the SSD, so I am not sure how to test/fix if it is the board/BIOS.

I should mention my WHS is set to wake and back-up this PC (and all of my others) durring the night. I have gotten two "back-up failed to complete" messages since this started. Both instances were on a day where it was still running in the morning with the words "BOOTMGR is Missing" on the screen.


Any help/insight would really be appreaciated. At this point I am considering just ditching the board and picking up a new 1366 board, if that turns out to be the best solution, does anyone have any recomendations?

I have been using ASUS boards lately (2 HTPCs and my WHS)and I was thinking of looking for a 1366 replacement ASUS board.

Trevor

[ikon]

1. try taking it out of the backup schedule on the WHS for a day or 2; see if it still shows the bootmgr msg in the morning.
2. maybe this is some sleep mode issue. Sleep mode can be pretty finicky. How does it behave if you wake it up any other time, and how do you wake it up (mouse, keyboard, power button)?

[TSWired]

1. try taking it out of the backup schedule on the WHS for a day or 2; see if it still shows the bootmgr msg in the morning.
2. maybe this is some sleep mode issue. Sleep mode can be pretty finicky. How does it behave if you wake it up any other time, and how do you wake it up (mouse, keyboard, power button)?

I will try pulling it out of the back-up pool and see if I can isolate that as a possible cause tonight.

Normally waking from sleep is fine (power button/Keyboard/mouse) with it waking without any issues. Although now that you say that I am not sure I have checked since this started, I will check it later tonight.

Thanks,

[pcdoc]

I have a Core i7 build with an intel DX58SO motherboard (Win 7 Ultimate 64bit)that has two seperate issues.
Specs:
Mobo: Intel DX58SO
RAM: Corsair 6g (2gigs x 3)(XMP Prfoile 1 in BIOS)Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C8D
Processors: Core i7 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz Extreme edition
SSD: OCV Vertex 2 90gig
GFX: SAPPHIRE 100269SR Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
Optical: 1 x Sony Optiarc DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model AD-7241S-0B LightScribe Support - OEM
1 x LG Black 6X Blu-ray Disc Burner & HD DVD-ROM Drive SATA Model GGW-H20L - OEM

The first happens when booting up; it takes about 30 seconds before it will start loading windows. I have done a bunch of searching online and haven't found any really good answers but it appears that it is "searching" for SATA devices. I have an OCV Vertex 2 SSD for the OS and Software (90gig if it matters) and a seperate WD Black HDD for data. Once it starts loading Windows it loads quickly (~15-20 seconds or so maybe faster). The thing that bothers me is that it takes longer overall to boot with the SSD than it used to take to load off of the spinning HDD.

The BIOS is set to AHC and the BIOS is the latest available, maybe there is an older more stable BIOS for this board I should downgrade to?

I have turned off all devices and ports that I am not using (serial, etc.) in the BIOS to try to speed up the POST/Boot process, to no avail.



In addition to that:

Just over about this last week I started getting a new error, so far I have only seen it happen in the morning. When I get up the PC is on (normally it is asleep overnight) and there is a black screen with wite lettering "BOOTMGR is Missing". I have done some research and I know I can do a repair from the Win 7 DVD, but I am wondering if I should given the following weird issue:

Pressing CTRL + Alt + Del reboots and after about 30 seconds the same message appears(this seems normal and expected given the error).

However, if I press the power button on the computer the system reboots and brings up the Improper Shutdown screen, after selecting Boot normally everything boots up fine. this seems odd to me and makes me suspect that somehow the SSD is not being powered up/that the system is trying to boot from the internal spinning HDD I use for data. I checked the BIOS and boot priority is the SSD, so I am not sure how to test/fix if it is the board/BIOS.

I should mention my WHS is set to wake and back-up this PC (and all of my others) durring the night. I have gotten two "back-up failed to complete" messages since this started. Both instances were on a day where it was still running in the morning with the words "BOOTMGR is Missing" on the screen.


Any help/insight would really be appreaciated. At this point I am considering just ditching the board and picking up a new 1366 board, if that turns out to be the best solution, does anyone have any recomendations?

I have been using ASUS boards lately (2 HTPCs and my WHS)and I was thinking of looking for a 1366 replacement ASUS board.

Trevor

Couple of questions/suggestions. First, you are running XMP 1600 on a board that is not typically good at XMP above 1333. Try reducing the memory back to default and see if that helps and use the optimized defaults for the rest of the BIOS. Memory timings can work for a while then deteriorate over time as things change a bit from time/heat. Make sure boot from LAN is not on in your BIOS. See if that BIOS supports quick boot. As for your new error, make sure that sleep hard drive is disabled. These will help narrow down the problem however I suspect it will boil down to hardware. Intel spec on the DDR3 for the X58 is 1333. Lastly (hopefully) you do not mention it but I assume you do not have a Thermaltake power supply. Let us know what the result of this is.

As for your suggestion of swapping our the hardware, if slowing up the memory, using bios defaults, and disabling HD sleep does not work, then it will most likely be in your hardware or corrupt install. I have seen this issues several times over the last 20 or so computers I built.

[TSWired]

Couple of questions/suggestions. First, you are running XMP 1600 on a board that is not typically good at XMP above 1333. Try reducing the memory back to default and see if that helps and use the optimized defaults for the rest of the BIOS. Memory timings can work for a while then deteriorate over time as things change a bit from time/heat. Make sure boot from LAN is not on in your BIOS. See if that BIOS supports quick boot. As for your new error, make sure that sleep hard drive is disabled. These will help narrow down the problem however I suspect it will boil down to hardware. Intel spec on the DDR3 for the X58 is 1333. Lastly (hopefully) you do not mention it but I assume you do not have a Thermaltake power supply. Let us know what the result of this is.

As for your suggestion of swapping our the hardware, if slowing up the memory, using bios defaults, and disabling HD sleep does not work, then it will most likely be in your hardware or corrupt install. I have seen this issues several times over the last 20 or so computers I built.

Thanks, I will add all of these to the list to check tonight and report back.

Trevor

Edited by TSWired, 19 July 2011 - 01:10 PM.

[pcdoc]

Let us know. Lets see if history repeats itself...

[TSWired]

I will try pulling it out of the back-up pool and see if I can isolate that as a possible cause tonight.

Normally waking from sleep is fine (power button/Keyboard/mouse) with it waking without any issues. Although now that you say that I am not sure I have checked since this started, I will check it later tonight.

Thanks,

OK; so after testing, removing this PC from the back-up pool didn't seem to matter (same issue with vs without). I also checked the wake from sleep and no issues there either.

Thanks again,

Trevor

[TSWired]

Couple of questions/suggestions. First, you are running XMP 1600 on a board that is not typically good at XMP above 1333. Try reducing the memory back to default and see if that helps and use the optimized defaults for the rest of the BIOS. Memory timings can work for a while then deteriorate over time as things change a bit from time/heat. Make sure boot from LAN is not on in your BIOS. See if that BIOS supports quick boot. As for your new error, make sure that sleep hard drive is disabled. These will help narrow down the problem however I suspect it will boil down to hardware. Intel spec on the DDR3 for the X58 is 1333. Lastly (hopefully) you do not mention it but I assume you do not have a Thermaltake power supply. Let us know what the result of this is.

As for your suggestion of swapping our the hardware, if slowing up the memory, using bios defaults, and disabling HD sleep does not work, then it will most likely be in your hardware or corrupt install. I have seen this issues several times over the last 20 or so computers I built.

Did some checking and testing:

Wake from LAN is not turned on in the BIOS

I could not find any option for a quick boot in the BIOS, I may need to do more reading of the manual.

HardDrive sleep was set to Disable (left it at that)
- I noticed Allow Hybrid Sleep is on, maybe I should turn this off?

I also went into the BIOS and set the memory to the Default as opposed to XMP1 ,(Default for this board is "Automatic" although there is also a "Manual" option)
- Did not seem to have an affect.


I did noticed a couple of things I had not paid attention to before:
In the BIOS there is a section for Discrete Sata
- The only settings are IDE and RAID
- It is set to IDE (the Native SATA is set to AHCI)
- I verified nothing is plugged into the Discrete SATA ports (white ports on board and rear panel SATA)

I will keep thinking and testing adn report back, I am leaning more and more towards replacing the board when I get a chance.

Also I had not thought to consider the Powersupply, but it is a RAIDMAX that was on special at NewEgg when I built the System. I used a Seasonic for the first time on a recent HTPC build and have been looking at the 700Watt Seasonic to replace the RaidMax anyway, maybe this is a good excuse to swap it out.

Raid Max: RAIDMAX RX-700SS 700W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Modular LED Power Supply
-NewEgg Listing: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817152030

Seasonic: SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
-NewEgg Listing: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817151087

Thanks again for the help,

Trevor

[ikon]

OK; so after testing, removing this PC from the back-up pool didn't seem to matter (same issue with vs without). I also checked the wake from sleep and no issues there either.

Thanks again,

Trevor

OK, so that would seem to indicate it's not an issue with WHS trying to wake it up for a backup. Now the question is why it craps out overnight (I'm assuming you're still getting the black screen BOOTMGR error).

[pcdoc]

It does begin to look like a hardware failure. The last ditch test, would be to do a clean install before replacing hardware though it seems inevitable.,

[timekills]

Three words: Power Supply Unit.

[ikon]

Three words: Power Supply Unit.

can't disagree. Don't know either of the brands he mentioned. I always stick with well respected name brand: corsair, antec, arctic cooling, etc.

[timekills]

Oft overlooked, and under appreciated. At worst, if you buy a good new PSU you can rule out that problem and have a spare for testing in the future. Much more future proof than most spare parts you can spend money on.

[TSWired]

So after doing more testing and not finding anything conclusive, I decided I might as well do a manual back-up of the PC because WHS was complaining it had been 6 days.

About halfway throught he back-up the PC froze (mouse cursor would move, but it would not respond to clicks)

Pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL (trying to get to Task Manager) brought up the same screen you would see as if it were shutting down but it had a message saying, Applying Security Updates where it would normaly say shuting down.

After a while of letting it crank away, I reset the PC from the reset button on the case.

It immediately came back up with the BOOTMGR is Missing, this is the first time I have been able to make it replicate the problem.

The odd part is that I was sure I removed it from the back-up list two nights ago, and it still had the same problem; but maybe I missed a step. Wouldn't be the first time I missed something.


So, I am thinking it is possibly related to the homeserver back-up routine and that it might be a combination of issues or small problems as well.

Right now I am planning to uninstall and re-install the connector tonight and see if anything changes.

[ikon]

Pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL (trying to get to Task Manager) brought up the same screen you would see as if it were shutting down but it had a message saying, Applying Security Updates where it would normaly say shuting down.

After a while of letting it crank away, I reset the PC from the reset button on the case.

Wondering if you waited long enough. It could be a failed update that's causing the issue.

[TSWired]

Wondering if you waited long enough. It could be a failed update that's causing the issue.

That is a good pointe; I will check the update info and see if there are any that failed. Or even if there are any recent security updates that were installed arround the time that this started.

Edited by TSWired, 21 July 2011 - 09:48 AM.

[TSWired]

After more testing and poking and proding, I decided I would use the Windows disk and let it repair the BOOTMGR file. However, it was unable to repair the error and actually had trouble finding the SSD.

So I settled on doing a complete re-install of the OS (and everything else on the SSD) to see if it would fix the issue. I built this computer in March of this year and it is a little sooner than I would usually re-install but I figured it couldn't hurt at this point.

I am still in the process of reloading and updating everything, I pulled in all new updated drivers for everything and loaded directly from Discs/Downloads (instead of WHS back-ups) just in-case there was something corupt in one of the older back-ups.

Once I have everything back up and running I will try some back-ups and report back to see if that fixed the BOOTMGR issue completely or not.

The slow to boot issue is still the same, I re-flashed the BIOS just to be sure nothing was wrong with it.

Also after reloading Windows 7 there is now an occasional "previous unsuccesful POST" error message with an option to enter the BIOS or to continue booting. I checked the POST Log in the BIOS and the only thing that is listed is 4 occurances of "No Keyboard found" Post errors from 2009; so I suspect this is memory timing related and I am going to dig up the numbers and force the settings manually (default is Automatic) to see if anything changes.

Trevor

[TSWired]

I noticed while working on things that the SSD was not plugged into the SATA 0 port, it was actually in SATA 1. Not sure if moving it will help but I figured it couldn't hurt.

Things are now rebuilt and two back-ups have gone off without any issue (one Manual, one overnight as scheduled). Computer woke form sleep without any issue this morning.

So although it is still slow to boot it is back up and running; or maybe I should say slow to get through POST - seems to boot pretty fast (15 - 20 seconds) once it gets through with POST.

I still need to work on the memory and was wondering if anyone has a good program for testing the memory (Tripple channel if it matters) that is safe for use with an SSD. I would like to test then manually set voltages and timings and test again.

I am thinking maybe the corrupt BOOTMGR file happened due to a memory issue, but I am not entirely sure how to test it, this was the best I could think of.

Thanks

[ikon]

I noticed while working on things that the SSD was not plugged into the SATA 0 port, it was actually in SATA 1. Not sure if moving it will help but I figured it couldn't hurt.

Things are now rebuilt and two back-ups have gone off without any issue (one Manual, one overnight as scheduled). Computer woke form sleep without any issue this morning.

So although it is still slow to boot it is back up and running; or maybe I should say slow to get through POST - seems to boot pretty fast (15 - 20 seconds) once it gets through with POST.

I still need to work on the memory and was wondering if anyone has a good program for testing the memory (Tripple channel if it matters) that is safe for use with an SSD. I would like to test then manually set voltages and timings and test again.

I am thinking maybe the corrupt BOOTMGR file happened due to a memory issue, but I am not entirely sure how to test it, this was the best I could think of.

Thanks

It shouldn't matter if the drive is in SATA 1 or 2, as long as it's not in one of the RAID ports (and RAID is enabled in BIOS).

Slow POST can be a number of things. One thing to check is if the onboard RAID is enabled. If it is, and you're not using it, disable it - it can take quite a few seconds for it to figure out that there are no drives attached.

I think pretty much everyone here would recommend MemTest86 for testing RAM.

[TSWired]

Update:

The BOOT MGR missing issue is back and I believe it may have been / is, due to a failing SSD.

Last night the system froze and then restarted to the BOOTMGR is mIssing message, after trying severl things to fix the issue I attempted a reload of the OS. Win7 64bit.

I ended up having to try the reload process several times and at first it would get to a random point and then stop with an error. Eventually the drive stopped showing up, even in Diskpart when using Shift +F10 to run from the command prompt.

I took the PC apart and noticed a solid red light on the back of the SSD (-ugh)

So I left it off (the PC), but still plugged in overnight and the next morning upon powering up the PC the light was green again. I treid to reload Windows but the light went red again (and Stayed red) before it could load into the Install screens.

I have an RMA request in to OCZ, there seem to be a lot of others experiencing the same issue since this July, has anyone here had intermittent/fatal issues with an OCZ Vertex 2?