XP Safe mode got unintended power-off.

My story is probably a bit too long, because I have been looking for the solution for several days. Please bear with me for the moment. (Forgive me about my bad English as well.)

Recently I find that whenever Win XP Prof. SP3 of my system is booted into safe mode, it just get powered off all by itself after about 2 minutes without any warning (not BSOD). Before its shutdown, everything looks quite ok. Desktop icons all show up and everything seems operational. Explorer and certain programs run fine, and I can even do the regular shutdown or restart if I can finish all those jobs in 2 minutes.

Except this safe mode insanity, my system is quite stable in normal mode. I can have it works several hours continuously without any problem occurred. In normal mode, I ran prime95 and 3dmark 06, they all turned out fine.

I have also setup a XP SP2 to another HD from my initial installation CD just for the test. I did not install any drivers or do any XP updates for the test setups. But again I got this safe mode power off issue, and only happened in safe mode.

Does anyone have any clue about this abnormality? (my first quick guess it is very likely to do with hardwares, but how, cause it is quite normal in regular mode.) I have done several try-outs by myself in the last few days. They are all unsuccessful.

1. I did sfc /scannow. But I got BSOD when booting into xp normal mode.
(Luckily, I got whole hard disk restored. I always keep a backup when doing something nasty.)
2. Change ram voltage from 1.8 to 1.9. Both of them cause no problem in normal mode. But not solve the safe mode power off problem.
3. Take out one video card and used a single graphic card; no luck.
4. Disconnect all the external usb drive (4 of them, and keep single graphics) and internet connection (with cable took off), still got automatic shutdown in safe mode.
Again, there is no apparent problem in normal mode.
5. In bios, I disabled most of the peripherals, such as usb, ide, floppy, ieee, audio, LAN controllers, and com and parallel ports. Then, try out in the test setup, but again got powered off in safe mode.
6. Try to disable ACPI in bios, but get rebooting when it was booted into Windows whether it is in safe or normal mode.

These are so far I have done. Any further suggestion or comments will be all very much appreciated.

 

exocet, I would be concerned that a possible malware was causing this problem. I recommend that you click HERE
and follow the instructions for posting your issue in the Malware and Virus Removal Forum.

BTW, have you checked your Event Viewer for any clues?

EDIT: I just reread your post and since you have installed a new system on another drive and get the same issue, it would tend to point to a hardware problem - a very odd hardware problem. All I can think of for that would be to check for all fans operating and no dust restricting the heat sinks.

I suppose the video support hardware for the bare bones VGA video used in Safe Mode could be the culprit. You've already rounded up all the normal suspects and present a hard problem to solve. Keep us posted if you make any progress.

 

Surferdude, thank your for your reply. Sorry I didn't response soon because of the time zone.

Even though I have NIS 2009 in the brackground all the time and do malware and trojan checking from time to time, I am doing the checking again right now just for the in case. (I have already done and did not find any deadly infection.)

I did check event viewer and there were some error messages. One is about stisvc cause DCOM error, another is about eventsystem cause DCOM error. They all show up on the time when the machine powered off in safe mode (and again only in safe mode). A geek from other forum recommended I should do sfc just because of these errors, but not successful. (Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining)

As far as heat issue, I did check fans both video and system, they are all working. Using Everest to read the temps of my maching, both cpu and video are no more than 50 degrees in C and around 60 when doing more heavy works like 3D gaming (in normal mode of cause). In fact, I always keep the side door of my case open and have a big fan to blow the heat out.

Vga card? But why in the simple safe mode. No mater what, I will try to swap video cards later, this is a bit more hassel for me to do.

Thank you again. I will definitely keep you posted if I get anything more about my issue. (But forgive my slow response because of my lazy style.)

 

Sorry Pete, but exocett did apologize for his bad English.

exocett, you mention temperatures of 50 to 60ºC, this would not be the cause of your problem, but these are very high temperatures normal operating temperatures are more likely to be between 30 and 43 degrees C.
Have you tried a system restore.

 

Sorry about the difficulty for you to read my posts. I should have made them more readable.

The current outdoor temperature in our city is about 30 degree C. I am not sure it can be kept to a lower temp like hawk22 said and I am just using air cooling. Besides, I can still have my machine work for me all day long in normal mode. (According to my memory, my Athlon 64 x2 could hold up to around 100 degree C before giving me a hard power off.) I am not sure whether my machine will have a higher temperature in XP safe mode.

I have already loaded bios in safe settings. There is no overclocking my system right now.

 

Hey guys. This is just an update about issue.

I did swap my video cards this afternoon, but still got failed in safe mode.

I have two conjectures that might be to do with my safe mode power off issue. Of couse these are all wild guess.

1. There are drivers loaded in safe mode (but not in normal mode) that trigger psu to power off.

2. My CPU gets hot very quickly right after XP booted into safe mode (not in boot menu nor in normal mode).

 

you are running way to high, outdoor temperatures of 30C is nothing I run my PC here in Australia in Summer temperatures of over 40C and never have CPU temps. as you mention.
I think you should seriously look at your cooling blow out dust and maybe even re-seat your CPU.
Read this article to understand temperatures, and take note that normal CPU temperature for Athlon 64 x 2 is 65ºC not 100 as you seem to think.

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/content.php?content=maxtemp.shtml

where do you get your temperature readings from

 

Thanks for keeping interested in my post.

Remember that I have a windows in another HD for test purpose. I will try to repair that first. If I can get it fixed, then PeteC is right.

I did look in Task Manager in Safe Mode before, there seems nothing really needed to worry about except svchost.exe things.

Finally, back to hawk22. I used to do some OCs with my system. I once had my machine run to a very high temperature. It was really surprised me that cpu nowadays won't burned out but just powered off (probably due to certain protection circuit on mobo). I got temp readings from Everest. I know figures from softwares are not real, but they were what I saw at that time. I am not sure whether Everest can run in Safe Mode.

 

Hey guys, I have found something interesting. Can't wait to share with you even though it's still far from understood by me based on my current knowledge.

This time I didn't boot into Safe mode using Windows defult. Instead, I added the following line in boot.ini and use it to boot my system:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS= "Safe Mode" /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog /usepmtimer /numproc=1

Now I can held with my system alive in Safe mode up to 5 minutes, and didn't give me ugly power off. And this happened both in current and test system.

I think the most critical part shown in the line above is the switch '/numproc=1'. When I looked at Task Manager in Safe mode, there was only single core working. This give a hint that probably the second core (?) has gotten crippled since long time ago. I might be pushing too hard with my Athlon X2 when I did overclocking jobs before.

I need more research and experiments to make sure the previous observations are sustainable and really the truth. I do like to know why the system be suffered in Safe Mode, but can find a way out by itself in Normal Mode in such a situation.