Windows won't boot past "Starting Windows"

[tylery88]

Hi,
I've recently had a problem with my Dell Studio XPS 8100. I regularly turned it off for the night and back on in the morning. About a week or so ago I turned the computer on in the morning and it gets past POST but once I get to the "Starting Windows" screen, it freezes. I at first erased the entire HDD, then reinstalled windows onto it. Finished installing installed AVG, all the updates, all the drivers with the disc provided by Dell. It ran for roughly 10 minutes and it froze, I had to hold down the power button. I then tried turning it back on and it yet again stuck at the "Starting Windows" screen on startup. I've finally went to BestBuy and bought a Seagate 1TB HDD. Installed windows. Drivers and updates, restarted it to install the updates and on reboot yet again stopped at the "Starting Windows" screen. Last night I wiped the HDD and reinstalled windows one last time but instead I did not download ANY windows updates, I just installed the drivers. AVG Anti-Virus. And Mozilla Firefox. It ran great I had it running for roughly 2 and 1/2 hours. I put it into hibernate for the night and this morning turned it on and once again, stopped at the "Resuming Windows" screen. I've ran the following tests.

sfc /scannow
startup repair
Repair my computer on the Windows disc
And a chkdsk test as well.
Startup repair has given me 2 different conclusions and one of them has been a constant(I mean it has shown up more times than the other). It says,"Changes to the system configuration may have caused the problem." This is the message I get the most. The other message is,"A recently installed driver may be causing this problem." Im lost by now. I've replaced the HDD. I've reset the BIOS to its original/default values. And yet still getting the same results. I'm absolutely lost. My tech teacher has lended me a 400W PSU to try using since my PSU in it, its fan is very loud. I've also ran a Memory Module Diagnostic test saying there was nothing wrong. Does anyone have a solution? The heatsinks work fine and all fans are working. I'm really hoping that it isn't the motherboard.

My specs are as follows:
Dell Studio XPS 8100
1GB x3 of RAM
Brand new 1TB HDD
NVIDIA GeForce 310m
Intel Core i5

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[lonewolf7]

There are three possibilities : 1.MB 2.GPU. 3.PSU

 

[tylery88]

Sorry to say I did not understand what you said? Explain?

 

[tylery88]

Wait nevermind I took a second glance but is there maybe a way to narrow it down?

 

[lonewolf7]

First of all try a known good working PSU of around 350-400W. See what happens.

Second thing to try is MB, here's how, take out all RAM sticks, start the PC, if you hear a beep sound from MB, then probably the MB is ok, else its dead.

If you have the 15pin VGA port on the back of MB, then pull out the GPU, then try to connect the monitor there (assuming you are using a GPU). If the system runs fine on on-board graphics, then it may be the GPU is culprit.

 

[tylery88]

Okay I tried taking out all the memory and turning it on, it beeped at me. I got a 400W power supply from my tech teacher but I noticed the 2 SATA cables are too close, I'm unable to plug in the dvd/cd-rom and my HDD at the same time. And I also checked for the 15pin VGA port on the back of the MB, but there is only a HDMI port. Sadly. I'll try getting another PSU from somewhere if I can.

 

[lonewolf7]

Ok, it seems that MB is probably good. You can use one MOLEX to SATA power adapter cable to plugin the HDD and DVD drive simultaneously, no harm in it, but use it for DVD drive not for the HDD.

The HDMI port will work though. If your monitor has a HDMI port then it will be easy for you to use, else you can buy a VGA to HDMI adapter. The main goal is to test the system without the GPU, or you can borrow a GPU to test, do whatever convenient for you.

And yes try another PSU.

You can also try the system in safe-mode too, if the system stays stable in safe-mode then its safe to say its a software/driver issue, else it will be hardware issue. Keep us posted.

 

[tylery88]

Okay last night I got it to boot to the logon screen and everything. Ran great the whole time I had it on. Did freeze twice. Turned it off turned it back on both times and after the second time ran great all night. Shut it off assuming it was fixed. Now it won't boot past the "starting windows" screen yet again. And safe mode won't boot past classpnp.exe now. Im not sure what happened. I have a new hard drive. And I don't think its the PSU concidering that it ran great last night. It seems the memory is good. Im starting to think this MB is the problem. But I'm not sure. Tonight I will try to run it with one stick of ram. Ill test each stick to see if is the culprit. And if it isn't it must be the MB. It's a Foxconn and I hear they are pretty much chinese knock-offs. Only problem is I don't want to buy a motherboard that won't support my RAM/Processor/graphics card. Im also wondering if the driver from NVIDIA in my updates is also another reason it is failing to boot. I recently let AVG PC Tuneup fixed registry files and everything. but now it won't boot in safe mode as I said. So if I cannot. I'm going to re-install windows and then figure out how to fix this mess some other way.

 

[lonewolf7]

Ok keep us posted.