boot - 'Repairing Disk Errors' message: what to do?
2014-07
George Tomlinson
I noticed a nasty smell when playing a game on the PC: a bit like car exhaust fumes from an old car.
I posted a question asking how to stop this from happening (in order to be able to carry on playing the game) on a few forums. On one of them, I was asked what the make of the PSU was and told it may be written on the PSU, so I unscrewed the side panel of the PC in an effort to find out the brand of the PSU. In doing so, when I pulled the panel off, 1 or more things got disconnected. I was left with a fan which had 2 disconnected plugs on: both the same size, 4 pin, one to go in, one to take in, attached to each other by a thick bunch of wires: yellow, red and green. Also, I noticed a smaller 4 pin in connector from something else and a smaller 3 pin in connector from something else. Anyway, I connected the larger 4 pin in (from the fan) into the only thing that it would seem to connect to, which was into a connector from a bunch of wires in the middle. The other 2 (into) connectors didn't seem to have any matching connectors to plug into them that I could see, so I left them unplugged. The first time I turned the PC on after this, it booted up ok, but then it would't boot up and just said 'Reboot and Select proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key'.
I opened the PC again and looked at it. I noticed another loose connection so I put the loose connector in.
Upon starting the PC up, it then gave the message 'Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We're just collecting info...'
Then it said 'Preparing Automatic Repair'
Then 'Diagnosing your PC'
Then it said 'Your PC did not start correctly. Press restart to restart your PC which can sometimes fix the problem.'
Then were 2 options: 'Restart' which just resulted in the same thing happening again and 'Advanced Options' which brought up 4 options:
'Continue' (to Windows 8.1): resulted in same again
'Use a device' (USB Drive, network connection or Windows Recovery DVD)
Troubleshoot
Turn off PC
Selecting option 3 gave 6 options:
Sys restore: tried this. Restore successful but just got same again
Command Prompt
Sys Image Recovery
UEFI Firmware Settings
Start Up Repair (tried this: didn't change anything)
Start Up Settings
6 had 10 options. 1 option was Use Windows Safe Mode: I selected this. It didn't work at first but then it started up in safe mode, but I couldn't get the internet, so I rebooted and it rebooted in normal mode and then everything was fine.
However, a couple of times when starting the PC up, it did give the message 'Your PC did not start correctly. Press restart to restart your PC which can sometimes fix the problem' again, so I tried starting in safe mode again, which worked again.
Last night I was playing a different game (it wasn't causing a bad smell) and then the PC just switched off.
When I rebooted, it gave these messages:
'Preparing Automatic Repair'
Then 'Diagnosing your PC'
Then 'Repairing Disk Errors. This might take an hour.'
Then it just goes to the 'doing something' screen.
I've tried just switching the PC off, but it does the same thing every time, so now I've just left it to try to repair those disk errors and plan to actually leave it an hour or more to see if it comes back with anything.
I also noticed that one of the connectors which I couldn't see the slot for before was the Power LED and plugged it in, which worked: the power light is now working, but as I say, the PC's not booting up.
I'm just wondering what to do next a) if it comes back with something b) if it doesn't come back with anything before I switch it off (I do plan to give it a bit more than an hour at least).
ianfuture
Motherboard is : ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe, Rev1.01,
On start up get: "cmos checksum error - defaults loaded" error BIOS is reset everytime and can't boot to Windows off HDD.
POST report is ok once I tell it there is no Floppy drive attached and not to seek it. The boot sequence starts then just as get to load windows safe mode options whole PC shuts down. BIOS is reset to defaults again.
I've checked the battery and jumpers. Tried a known working battery. Changed Graphics card, changed memory, changed HD to one without an OS. Disconnected DVD drive. PSU is known to be ok.
IN BIOS CPU is recognised correctly and memory is also recognised ok.
So is it likely to be a bad motherboard or corrupted BIOS or something else?
Thanks :)
hanleyp
From your description, it sounds like this happens every time you boot.
- Do you only boot your system by switching on the AC power to it?
- Does this also occur after you power down from the OS or by pressing your power button for > 4 seconds causing the system to go into "Soft Off" or ACPI S5 mode?
- Is the time reset each time you have invalid CMOS checksum?
The reason I'm asking is because the VBAT power connection is typically powered by an on board regulator when the system is plugged in and by the battery when the system is disconnected from the AC outlet. You can measure the VBAT voltage and if it is ~3V or less then it is running off the battery, but if it is closer to 3.3V, then it is powered by the 3.3V DC-DC regulator on the motherboard.
If #1 above is the case, then it is likely the battery connection. #2 is more cause for concern that the motherboard isn't behaving as designed.
There is a third potential problem. Some motherboards have a Clear CMOS input which does not GND the path from the battery to the VBAT power input. Instead, when asserted, it clears the CMOS, but not the time. Look for a header with this connection to make sure it isn't shorted.
Also, bad electrolytic capacitors being the cause is unlikely because the VBAT connection is a low current connection and any capacitors on it are not likely to be electrolytic. The 3.3V voltage rail may have capacitors, but even if the voltage dipped, the VBAT power usually can go as low as 2.6V without CMOS corruption.
William Hilsum
Obviously impossible to say 100% without seeing it, however, I had one of these last week that was very similar (also on a Asus motherboard...).
I tried reflashing BIOS but go nowhere, I attributed it to a bad motherboard and got a replacement under RMA.
ianfuture
After all that and lots of fiddling it appears the CPU was overclocked in BIOS and had become unstable. Only by chance I noticed this. Thanks for help :)
8088
Dude, that is an old board. I remembered I had it like 4 or 5 years back. Check for capacitor leaks or any forms of burnish on the board - they might be causing those errors.
It could even be that the wiring paths from the batteries have corroded somehow. It's 5 years, time to give it a rest.