Strange Issue that just started occurring

[DaveLembke]

So my computer of 4 years just started acting different at POST.

Motherboard = Biostar MCP6PB M2+ ( bought as a cheap combo package 4 years ago as seen here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138178 )
CPU = Athlon II x4 620 2.6Ghz AM3 95Watt ( running native clock 2.6Ghz... haven't overclocked YET )
RAM = Corsair DDR2 XMS2 800Mhz ( Matched Pair from MFR ) 2 x 2GB ( 4GB )
PSU = 460 Watt - Cooler Master ( Rated 4 of 5 stars ) *about 9 months old. This PSU replaced the prior 500watt that was more like a falsely labelled 300watt cheapo no name Golden Power that gave me issues shortly after upgrading from Sempron x2 2200 CPU to this Athlon II x4 620 quadcore with heavier power demands.
GPU = ATI Radeon HD5450 1GB DDR3 PCie 16x

Here are the 3 boot POST conditions.

Normal POST condition you get the splash screen of CPU info, RAM count, I/O port HDD info etc, and then the last line displayed is testing to see if there is a bootable CD or DVD and then it boots normal into Windows 7 Home Premium.

Odd POST condition #1 which has been happening for a long time and ignored it since system booted fine and ran fine was the following message on the last line.

AMD Data Change ... Update New Data to DMI!  Update Success

Odd POST condition #2 which just started happening about a week ago which is the bigger issue. System goes through POST and the last line displays.

AMD Athlon II x4 620 Processo......

And the system hangs at this message. The system will not accept CTRL+ALT+DELETE and is locked up on this POST message. In addition to this my system boots and the fans go full speed, and through part of the POST the auto speed enables and the fans should normally slow down considerably to about 50% speed. During this system hang the fans are all roaring at 100% speed.

List of things I have troubleshot so far:

CMOS Battery ( strong 3.06VDC )
PSU ( Haven't swapped it out yet, but the voltages reported in the BIOS are all strong, nothing is weak. I also confirmed the 5V and 12V via digital multimeter.)
BIOS Update ( Found that there was a newer Flash for my BIOS and flashed it to the latest/last supported version ... this did not change anything except for more CPU compatability support for this board, and a new Biostar Logo with something in Chinese, shut off the logo to get the original config back of showing POST info to user )


Regarding Odd POST condition #1 - The fact that it thinks there are hardware changes is very strange when no devices have been added/removed between the last system run and the recent boot. My first thoughts when I saw this was that maybe the CMOS battery was getting weak and it was a message indicating discovery of hardware that was lost by weak CMOS battery. But that wasn't the case.

Regarding Odd POST condition #2 - The fact that it hangs with message about the CPU to me worries me that maybe the CPU itself is failing, although in the 25 years working with computers I have yet to see an actual CPU fail that is not stressed. This CPU idles around 37C and when running games its hit 52C maximum.

Other things I have looked for regarding a motherboard that might be the issue. Capacitors all look healthy in appearance. No swolen or leaky caps. This motherboard was not a high end board when released and purchased in April 2009, so it has the cheaper larger aluminum electrolytic caps. But when they fail you almost always find them bloated and leaking or they explode.

I also removed the RAM and reseated it. Unplugged and plugged back in the power supply cables etc to make sure they are firmly secure in connections.

Sometimes it takes about 3 forced shutdowns via the power button and turned back on to get it to boot correctly. NOTE: Once the system is booted it behaves without any issues. So if it were a CPU ready to crap out I would expect it to show up under the stress of multitasking and games.

I also removed load from the system the 2nd time that it was acting up with condition #2 the hung boot by disconnecting while off, the IDE DVD-RW drive, and both SATA hard drives, as well as removing the ATI Radeon HD5450 video card from the PCIe slot so that the motherboard boots bare minimum as well as the PSU does not have the burden of all this hardware at boot sucking up the amps. The system still booted and hung with condition #2 two more times before finally getting past this and booting to Windows 7. *If it were a weak power rail on the PSU, I would expect that this would have cured the issue by removing 3 drives and video card.

Anyone have any suggestions on anything I may have missed checking out to troubleshoot this?

I dont like to force hardware on and off on a regular basis as it is requiring to get it to boot successfully.

[patio]

I know you looked at the Caps...what does the area around the CMOS receptacle look like ? ?
It's a reach...but i've seen it.
You may also want to remove the board and inspect it from the bottom...

[DaveLembke]

Thanks for the suggestion Patio.

Will dig into this tomorrow and report back my findings. Not such time to do anything but work and sleep with working 4 x 12 hr days back to back. Got 1 day off and then back to the grind. 

[Geek-9pm]

....
You may also want to remove the board and inspect it from the bottom...

It might have crud under the board that could explain odd  behavior.

[DaveLembke]

Its been in this case since April 2009 and I have blown out lots of surface dust with canned air quarterly or at least 2x a year from the top side of it. I am sure I will find dust deposits under it, where the canned air cant reach. But a few times I had daddy long leg spiders living inside of it with webs set up to catch prey suspended below the HDD and front panel, and joked to my wife that it was part of the natural debugger my system had.

My wife hates spiders, while I will pick them up and put them outside vs killing them and so it also kept her away from my faster computer 

Maybe one of my natural debuggers died behind the board and bugged it. 

[DaveLembke]

Removed motherboard, found some dust bunnies hidden under the motherboard. Popped the battery out and cleaned it off to make sure no dust was on the contacts. Took another reading...still 3.06VDC. Reconfigured BIOS config since parameters lost due to removal of CMOS battery.

Now the system hasnt had the boot issues yet.

While I was poking around in the BIOS config, the overclocking features hooked me into the need for speed even though 2600Mhz is fast enough, why not try for 3100Mhz.

Booted and shut down the computer about 20 times trying different settings and the problem hasnt come back so maybe cleaning the cmos battery and contacts did the trick. Really hoping it did!

Thanks for suggestion for checking under board as for there were some pretty good deposits, not a blanket of it but some flat dust bunnies were about as round as a 50 cent piece below the PS2 ports in the upper corner of the board where I guess the canned air didnt reach. I was surprised that there was airflow under the board to collect all that in the 4 years of use and blowing off the top side. I suppose blowing the dust off the board could have packed some behind it as well.

[patio]

Cool Beans...let's see how long it stays stable...unless youre gonna keep clocking it til it fries...

[DaveLembke]

Cool Beans...let's see how long it stays stable...unless youre gonna keep clocking it til it fries...

I have heard if its not broken dont fix it before!!!   

I am going to be careful.     Got a heatsink on its way and Calum has had lots of great useful info on overclocking. I set my speed back to 2.6Ghz with 200Mhz FSB until I get that heatsink in there to replace the solid block of aluminum.