System Reboots on Startup

I have just recently started experiencing that my System boots and Reboots about 2-3 times on Startup before Windows (Home Ed) actually starts.

I did a search on "System Reboots and saw a post about checking the "Event Log" and this is what I found: (4 Errors)

"AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write to an illegal IO port address (0xcf8) which lies in the 0xcf8-0xcff address protected range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance. "

"AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from to an illegal IO port address (0xcfc) which lies in the 0xcf8-0xcff address protected range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance. "

"The mrtRate service failed to start due to the following error: The system cannot find the file specified. "

"The IPSEC Services service terminated with the following error: The authentication service is unknown. "

I'd appreciate any info anyone can provide on what is going on and how to correct it.

 

First: In the event you have a hardware problem, make sure all your backups are current.

Turn off auto restart
Control Panel/System/Advanced/Startup and Recovery
uncheck auto restart

If it "crashes ", you will get an error code to begin troubleshooting.

When the computer successfully boots, do you have any unexpected shutdowns or freezes?

Johanna

 

I get no crashes at this time.

It's just a pain to try to figure out what has happened to my system recently that has caused it to start running this way.

 

If this not not directly related to a hardware issue as Johanna suspects you may wish to consider other issues such as I will mention below.

I'd head for your quicken support site to look for ACPI issues but for starters how about this: (look for ways to disable this service or a quicken option to stop it)
http://www.intuit.com/support/quicken/2003/win/7221.html

Since ACPI is advanced power management (such as sleep and hibernation would involve) and quickens mrtrate driver (directly tied into making background download requests) may be duking it out.

Problem is I'm not sure what the main culprit is hardware/ipsec related or a fowl up with advanced power management or Quicken. At least it's a starting point. You may want to disable things such as "hibernation" or "sleep mode ". Or Power management altogether.

Ipsec IPSec (Internet Protocol Security),
http://www.theeldergeek.com/ipsec_services.htm
got to wonder if Quicken isn't invovled in some confliction or change with this service also. I may be way off base here but all of the above is worth a looksee at the Quicken support site.

While I think either a hardware or software problem is more likely I must include the possibility that it may well be "Advanced Power Management ".
How long have you had this computer/ "operating system" and is this ACPI problem new? While reading posts, I noticed that some have mentioned that on a fairly new updated operating system of Xp (from an older operating system or older computer) or after recently flashing the bios the ACPI errors would soon follow. This would indicate that the error should be taken literally and the bios would need further consideration. You may be having "Power Management" issues.

If this is an older computer with an older bios you may just be suffering from the classic known "Power Management" problems.

 

Good advice above.

"AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to write to an illegal IO port address (0xcf8) which lies in the 0xcf8-0xcff address protected range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance. "

"AMLI: ACPI BIOS is attempting to read from to an illegal IO port address (0xcfc) which lies in the 0xcf8-0xcff address protected range. This could lead to system instability. Please contact your system vendor for technical assistance. "

It may be as simple to cure these two (and they are most likely the cause of the crashing) by updating the BIOS. It isn't that hard but if not done correctly it can render the PC inoperable so if you find there is an available BIOS update (probable) you gotta decide if you want to do the upgrade yourself or pay a shop to do it for you.

The BIOS makers web site will give you details about what they have as their latest version. Get a free copy of the home version of Everest and run it to find out exactly what BIOS you have then check on the web.

If you want specifics about doing the upgrade, we can help with that.

 

I disabled the Auto Restart and this is what happened this morning.

I turned on my computer and just after the initial Windows screen popped up (the one with the little bar at the bottom and the colored squares running across), I got a blue screen and this error:

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000026c (0x00000000) (0x00000000).

The System has been shut down.
********
I then hit the Reset switch and she fired up with no problems.

I'll take a look at the tips you all have submitted, but if there is a fix for this particular problem not mentioned in the previous posts, please let me know.

Thanks for all your help.

BTW, I want to mention that this Reboot problem only happens with the initial start of the computer. If I have to reboot because of Installing/Uninstalling a program, it has never rebooted more than the one time.

 

How about a free on-line virus scan? While this may still be hardware (bad ram). The errors are multiple and are random. This is going to take some pinning down using an elimination process. What better place to start than to make sure you aren't critter infested.

See:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=37074
Thread 2 has links to on-line scanners.

While your in the link you may as well follow it up with adware, spybot and if there is no improvement, hyjackthis. Afters the scans and cleanups:
1]Virus
2]LavasoftAdware
3]Spybot
In the least a hyjackthis "log" may help to reveal something running that shouldn't or something not running that should.

---------------
A startuplist might also help. HijackThis includes a copy of StartupList, that can be run from the HijackThis interface but here is a site where it can be gotten as a standalone as well:
HijackThis includes a copy of StartupList, that can be run from the HijackThis interface.

 

Something to check is that the motherboard/chipset drivers are installed and working properly. You should be able to get the latest chipset drivers from your motherboard manufacturer's website.

To check drivers go to Device Manager (see Help and Support).

I've found WinXP will install the drivers it thinks are best and the hardware may "work ". I had to reinstall a lot of drivers when I first installed XP...a lot of devices just did not work properly.

Do not rely that someone has installed the drivers correctly before you got the machine.

Matt

 

I updated the BIOS and that took care of the Reboots.

However, I still have a problem with my "A" Drive corrupting my floppys. In fact my daughter just lost access to the floppy she has School Project on that can't be duplicated.

The Formatting of floppys appears to work, but after it says Formatting Complete, my "A" drive still can't read it. I have to go across the street to a friends to format them.

Any ideas what might be causing that and is there any "Recovery" programs for floppys?

 

I replaced the Floppy Drive and all is almost well.

Now if I can just find a Program to help me RECOVER the files lost on my now defunct floppys.

I tried File Scavenger, but nothing.

Any other ideas?

 

If the files are text, Nortons disk editor is useful. It's part of norton's utilities on symantec's Norton's systemworks. You don't need the latest and can find 2003 on the web rather inexpensive.