win 7 freezing at splash screen

[funsoul]

Arggghhh!!!!!

Having some trouble with my sig '3dv' 3930/RIVF build. Been running without issue for a year or so until the last few days.

Restored a known, good image and started setting up some games. The mouse kept freezing (losing power for a sec) in Skyrim with widescreen fixer enabled. Tried L4D2 (another steam game) and it did the same thing. Deleted steam, re-booted, re-installed steam and no mouse issues in L4D2. Started widescreen fixer and skyrim, mouse issues. Skyrim without widescreen fixer and no mouse issues (too bad it's not really playable without the fix).

Resetting bios settings to default, non-overclocked didn't change anything.

Dug around a bit...seems to be nvidia drivers. Read someone had luck with the 326.80 drivers. Did a clean install of the new drivers and re-booted, pc hung at the win splash screen.

Restored the image again, re-booted and logged into windows. No problems. Re-booted, hung at the splash screen.

Did a clean, full install of win 7 x64, no problems. Got into windows with no issues. Installed the older, working drivers and re-boot....stuck again

Thought it was the nvidia drivers but then why wouldn't the older ones work after a fresh formatting and rebuild? Thinking it may be something else since even the 'known good build' only gets me into windows once (as does the fresh build).

Going to try a few more things but wanted to see if anyone had thoughts. Everything's at default settings (except hyperthreading, speedstep and c-states disabled).

tia

Update: Cpu seems fine..3.5GHz at 1.232v (cpu-z)...prime95 with error-checking's been running a while...no errors and max core temp (in hwmonitor) is 56C.
Update: More weirdness. Still sticking at the splash screen from a cold start or re-boot but if I go into bios and 'save settings and reset' it gets right through to the login screen and then desktop.

 

[Robert17]

Not that I have any recent experience with this type issue, but, did you try older Nvidia drivers? I remember rolling back to the 310-318 series about a year ago due to a system hang/Steam issue. Problem went away.

 

[funsoul]

Hi Robert17! Thanks for the response! Haven't tried drivers older than 320.49 as those worked more or less perfectly for quite some time.

Did just update the bios, though and have now gotten past the splash screen a few times. Hoping that maybe, possibly, that fixed the issue but will keep the thread open until I've checked things out a bit more thoroughly.

Gotta say, though....now that I've updated bios to the one that adds IB-E support, am seriously thinking of pulling the trigger on a 4930k once widely available and my bank account has recovered from my recent spending binge :/

 

[funsoul]

Ugh...thinking this needs to move to the general hardware thread.

System seems pretty stable (30 mins of p95 with no errors) but the memory's only running at ddr3-1600. Ram speed in bios set to auto and voltage set to the sticks' default of 1.65v. With voltage on auto, the system gave them ~1.3v.

When I set the ram to it's rated ddr3-2133, p95 errors out in moments on all cores (I've got HT off). Pulled all the sticks except the first one and ran memtest, no errors after 1 full pass. Tried manually setting to 2133 with that single stick, p95 fails and system crashed.

I do seem to recall reading that Intel doesn't recommend using more than (iirc) 1.5v to the ddr and that higher could result in instability. Now that my board's on bios rev 4403 (which added IB-E support), that may be the issue? Think tomorrow I'll try re-loading an older bios and see if that helps.

Anyone have ideas about what's up?
tia!

 

[Robert17]

Did you check to see if you have XMP set to auto? I can't imagine that you could set your RAM to 1600 if it is....but 1600 is what mine defaults to if I turn XMP off....setting voltages, etc., is enabled then as well. (I have a different rig, obviously) ..just thinking..

 

[funsoul]

When things were running properly, I couldn't use XMP and overclock so, atm, it's set to auto or, manually, to 2133. Will use XMP to see if it clears up the ram speed issue.

Update: When set to run XMP (with a single stick), memory runs np at 2133 and p95's been running a while with no errors. Heading our but will try overclocking a bit and, if that works, try running all 4 sticks with XMP and no overclock then, if the system passes, will try overclocking with all 4 sticks. If overclocking fails, think I'll first try reverting back to a pre-IB-E support bios?

Update: Am running @ 4GHz stable with HT off, 4x4GB, 2133 (using XMP), 60C max. Cpu-z shows 1.256v to the cpu. Hmmmm