Got them intermittent startup blues

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Haus of Tech Support > Got them intermittent startup blues

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Problem description: My computer is having some issues starting up. During a successful startup, I see the following sequence of events:

The light on the power button turns on.
The CD drive light flashes as the boot sequence looks for a bootable disk there.
The USB hub lights up.
The numlock light on my keyboard flashes.
The monitor light indicates that there's input.
The lights on the keyboard flash again and pressing the caps lock key causes a light to toggle.
The display shows Windows.

What I'm seeing now is that the process just stops after one of those things happens. If step 5 happens the computer is fine, but it can fizzle out anywhere before that.

Attempted fixes: This is a Dell and it's under a service contract, so I've been on the phone with their tech support. All the updates have been applied, they ran an sfc scan, they messed with the boot settings, and they ran through Dell's diagnostic tools for intermittent boot issues. Nothing has helped. They want to reinstall the OS but I'd like a second opinion before I go through with that.

Recent changes: I switched out the monitor the day before this all started.

--

Operating system: Windows 11 Home, 64-bit, with all updates applied.

System specs: Dell XPS 8940 with an 11th gen Intel Core i9 and 32.0 GB RAM.

Location: USA.

I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yep.

# ? Jun 24, 2023 22:58

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 19:33

down1nit: Jan 10, 2004; outlive your enemies

I'd definitely reseat the ram. Maybe even alcohol clean the ram contacts.

Out of 100 tries, how often does it fail to startup (OK to be vague). Any freezes while it's running?

# ? Jun 25, 2023 07:50

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

It varies. Most of the time it takes a few tries to start up, every once in a while it takes a lot, and today it started on the first try (just to spite me?). There've been a few freezes, but not recently.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 14:24

YarPirate: May 17, 2003; Hellion

Anything interesting in Dell bios event logs or windows event viewer when the behavior happens?

# ? Jun 25, 2023 16:20

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

It'd been fine all day and then tonight I had to try about 12 times to start the drat thing. But I did catch a couple things in the event log that look relevant:

code:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Boot
Date:          6/25/2023 9:19:58 PM
Event ID:      29
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      (8796093022208)
User:          SYSTEM
Computer:      ....
Description:
Windows failed fast startup with error status 0xC00000D4.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Boot" Guid="{15ca44ff-4d7a-4baa-bba5-0998955e531e}" />
    <EventID>29</EventID>
    <Version>1</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8000080000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-06-26T01:19:58.9929985Z" />
    <EventRecordID>61856</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>....</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="FailureStatus">3221225684</Data>
    <Data Name="FailureMsg">A fatal error occurred processing the restoration data.
</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

code:

Log Name:      System
Source:        EventLog
Date:          6/25/2023 9:20:13 PM
Event ID:      6008
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      ....
Description:
The previous system shutdown at 7:25:16 PM on &#8206;6/&#8206;25/&#8206;2023 was unexpected.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="EventLog" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="32768">6008</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-06-26T01:20:13.3208145Z" />
    <EventRecordID>61874</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="2840" ThreadID="2916" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>....</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>7:25:16 PM</Data>
    <Data>&#8206;6/&#8206;25/&#8206;2023</Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>2411</Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Data>
    </Data>
    <Binary>E7070600000019001300190010006603E7070600000019001700190010006603600900003C000000010000006009000001000000B00400000000000000000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
</Event>

code:

Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-PnP
Date:          6/25/2023 9:20:05 PM
Event ID:      219
Task Category: (212)
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      
User:          SYSTEM
Computer:      ....
Description:
The driver \Driver\WUDFRd failed to load for the device PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_4C03&SUBSYS_09C51028&REV_01\3&11583659&0&20.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-PnP" Guid="{9c205a39-1250-487d-abd7-e831c6290539}" />
    <EventID>219</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>3</Level>
    <Task>212</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-06-26T01:20:05.4592565Z" />
    <EventRecordID>61904</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="396" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>....</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="DriverNameLength">60</Data>
    <Data Name="DriverName">PCI\VEN_8086&amp;DEV_4C03&amp;SUBSYS_09C51028&amp;REV_01\3&amp;11583659&amp;0&amp;20</Data>
    <Data Name="Status">3221226341</Data>
    <Data Name="FailureNameLength">14</Data>
    <Data Name="FailureName">\Driver\WUDFRd</Data>
    <Data Name="Version">0</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

That second one is interesting because I didn't shut the system down at 7:25 PM; that's almost 40 minutes before the closest shutdown.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 02:30

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

And I forgot to mention that I don't think I can see the bios log. The new monitor doesn't display anything until Windows starts, whereas the old one would show the Dell splash screen. I've been waiting to try to avoid shutting down the computer before Windows has loaded and that makes this whole process so much slower.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 03:10

YarPirate: May 17, 2003; Hellion

Nvm just re-read.

When it doesn't boot does it fail before the BIOS prompt screen?

Do you have your old monitor to test with?

YarPirate fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jun 28, 2023

# ? Jun 27, 2023 20:27

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# ? Apr 29, 2024 19:33

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Two changes since the last time I saw this:

I hooked the monitor up through HDMI 1 rather than HDMI 2. Now it gets the Dell splash screen rather than not seeing anything until Windows starts.
I replaced the USB hub. The one I had previously was about a decade old and had a few bad ports.

Obviously I don't know if it's completely fixed since it was always an intermittent issue, but it was pretty frequent before, and now it seems to be rare. Nothing else has changed, so I'm going to blame this on the failing USB hub unless it starts up again. Thanks all for your suggestions.

ultrafilter fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Jun 30, 2023

# ? Jun 30, 2023 13:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Haus of Tech Support > Got them intermittent startup blues