Shot in the dark but any idea why my htpc wont reboot sometimes

God this is frustrating, i set my htpc up and everything is going well. Except i have one issue, maybe 1 out of 10 times the pc will not reboot properly.

I hit the reset button on the pc itself and then it always boots properly.

I have no idea what this is or whats happening, basically everything is spinning, but no picture, and i also cant access it through vnc, my vnc software cant even see it or make a connection, so i dont think its just an intergrated graphics issue.


Its never not started after i hit the reset button manually on the machine. When it happens it will basically reboot and then before the windows loading graphic comes on nothing will happen, the pc will be on, fans spinning, lights on, but no way to access the pc until i hit reset.

I am wondering if its my usb mce IR receiver causing the issue, i had this pc professionally put together and had it installed by ncix, and made them hook up the CIR thing or whatever on my motherboard so the remote can boot up my pc from S5, is it possible this CIR thing or whatever is causing issues and getting out of sync or something? I unplugged my usb ir receiver for my remote today but I am not sure if that will do anything. I really have no idea what this is....

My specs are

Silverstone Milo ML03B Black

Cooler Master Elite Power 400W

AMD A10-5800K APU Quad Core Processor Socket FM2

ASRock FM2A75 PRO4 ATX FM2 A75

Kingston HyperX KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 XMP Dual Channel Memory Kit

Crucial M4 SSD Micron C400 64GB 2.5in Solid State Disk Flash Drive SATA3 6Gbps

When it doesnt boot I believe the picture just cuts out before windows loading. I never see a bios post maybe because my hdmi switch/tv is to slow to display it. Then the screen stays black, pc is on, but you cant vnc into it.

Tonight it hapepned again, i noticed its happening more whenever i have a scheduled reboot in task scheduler, but i need to reboot daily to keep things running good. I stayed up the other day to watch it reboot late at night when i have it scheduled, it shut down, rebooted fine right on schedule, next day i checked the logs it shuts down and then this error occurs, everything is on, everything is spinning, but the pc is not accessible. I could not vnc in either. SO i hit reboot on the case and everything is fine.

Tonight i looked again, and it was stuck, the blue light was on, everything is spinning but the computer cannot be accessed.

Now here is the important hint that maybe someone can solve.

When this occurs I hit reset on the case windows loads.


Typically with improper shutdown i get the bios screen notifying me the pc didnt shut down properly, in this instance im battling currently, i never get that, it loads like it should.....like nothing went wrong.,,,,

I have seen this happen the odd time awhile back (not lately) and when i watch it happen it seems to occur right before the windows loading screen, and windows never loads. Whenever i hit reset on the case, it always loads properly, and like i mentioned, like nothing went wrong.

I did a check disk also last night, it came up with nothing, i have not came across this manually rebooting myself for over a month now either. Is their a chance its the scheduled reboot? Why would that matter though?
Edited by Murilo - 2/28/13 at 7:37pm

The fact that I dont get improper shutdown screen does that mean this is happening before windows loads, and its not even loading into windows?

I would start worrying now but again, why is it so rare for this to happen? And why everytime i hit restart on the pc itself does it boot fine the first time?

I just changed the reboot timers again so i could watch what happens and it seems to load fine whenever i watch. Do not understand whats going on.
Edited by Murilo - 2/28/13 at 7:58pm

How can I tell, it just shows a black screen before windows loading and nothing, no windows load screen just black....even though the pc is on and everything is running. I cant even vnc into it, and every time i hit reboot on the case it immediately launches and works.

I guess I can hook it up to my monitor and try to get a quick glimpse but i have no idea when its going to happen...it happens maybe 1 out of 10 reboots.

Tonight i scheduled 3 reboots and manually rebooted it myself another 4 times, everything went smooth.

It failed tonight again on a manual reboot.

I mentioned why I scheduled a nightly reboot, keep things running smoothly, xbmc can slow down and run slugish until a reboot as many people have reported with resource heavy skins, also xbmc is set to update the library on startup, this is all very nice feature that keeps my htpc running great and keeps my library updated daily, no reason why this should not work.

Tonight it happened again with a manual reboot, so its not the scheduled reboot causing issues.

The pc is brand new put together by ncix professionally and supposedly stress tested for days to check for errors and problems... I paid 50 extra dollars for this, i always buy pc's from them and they always test the equipment and assemble it themselves for errors.

I guess i can try all that but i dont have any extra parts, I would take it to a repair shop but i have no idea what to tell them. Will see if i can do some of what you mentioned, but I am unsure i will find anything.

This problem is so stupid and random i cant believe its happening, if their was any sort of consistency or message whats happening it would make this alot easier.

I checked the smart status of my SSD speedfan and that link both reported 100% also ran a diagnostic in speedfan which also claims its working fine, everything i thrown at the SSD keeps reporting its in perfect shape.

Will try the memtest yet.

Im somewhat wondering if this is not happening when i have any usb device plugged in. I have an xbox 360 wireless receiver for PC and my mce remote, i unplugged both, going to see if this happens then. If that is the problem i have no idea what to do about it, because i need those devices plugged in at all times.

As mentioned previously, I just like the reboot, it updates my library daily, keeps my pc running fast..... no reason this should cause an issue, and again its not the issue, it happened during a manual reboot a few times now to. The reboot is all about hands off automation and this is something simple that keeps my library updated daily every morning and when im not at home, and pc running great, im away often and have wife and kids who use it and dont know much about it or updating the library.

Can we forget the scheduled reboot, frankly im surprised more people dont automate a reboot daily and its not the problem. Literally im convinced i have the perfect build for me, everything runs so incredible, except for this one rare error that occurs randomly 1 in maybe 10-20 reboots. I have a scheduled wake of my pc when im sleeping, my pc then reboots, xbmc library updates on startup all my music and movies, a few xbmc scripts run (clean library, extra artwork downloader).... then it goes back to sleep, this all works great and again their is no reason why a scheduled reboot should cause issues and its not the reason. It has happened three times now manually rebooting so its not the issue.

Thanks for the info. Very interesting, but when it happens like last night when it happened during a manual reboot, i hit reset on the case itself right away and it booted instantly......The link says it takes it off line for 30-60 minutes.


Since unplugging the mce ir receiver and wireless xbox 360 receiver i have not had this issue, i rebooted manually about 20 times the past 24 hours since connecting it to a monitor and also hooked up to my avr as was previously trying to reproduce the error and notice something. No issues to report yet.

If it is an issue with usb devices connected i dont know what im going to do. I need them, and i have no idea what this means or how to fix it.
Edited by Murilo - 3/2/13 at 6:46pm

Thanks for the suggestion, I had tested and am positive it definately happened when either one was plugged in. I did this step a few weeks ago, should have mentioned it. I might try each one by one again if this stops occurring when nothing is plugged in to reconfirm it.



So far so good with no usb plugged in, but its going to take a week before im convinced of this, i will have to keep testing and reporting back.

I almost want to send it back to ncix and tell them to figure it out, i paid 50 dollars to have everything tested and the pc put together professionally, the 50 dollar charge claimed to include testing the systems stability and making sure everything works. But then i ordered a noctua heatsink from them and had the local future shop install it because I wanted it done by someone experienced. So they could easily claim the pc repair store did something installing the heatsink.

I have a feeling this could be months before i figure anything out. But so far with no usb devices plugged in, its been working fine.
Edited by Murilo - 3/3/13 at 3:54am

Someone elsewhere suggested to me a boot issue, my first boot is set as my solid state drive, second boot is set to EUFI shell?

Should i disable that, i dont even know what that is. But need to check with someone before I consider doing it.
Edited by Murilo - 3/3/13 at 4:30am

I think so to, I really dont think its going to do anything either. The person who made the suggestion thought sometimes the pc was trying to boot from a usb device....I just ran a battery or reboots this morning, and everything has been fine with no usb plugged in. Will keep checking and testing.

I hope your right because it would make sense. Really ncix here in canada is thought of well and they built about 3 pc's for me, they also emailed me while putting it together asking about configuration and stuff, whether they actually did test it im unsure.

I had them connect the front usb ports as usb 2.0 and onto the CIR connection on the motherboard on asrocks thats how it said to configure it in the manual so you can boot from s5 shutdown with a remote, i am wondering if that caused issues. The mce remotes I used (i have tried two now) at least my old one did not function as a usb 3.0 connection.

Well it finally happened again with no usb devices plugged in.

Going to run memtest this week and rule out the ram.

Any chance my psu is not good enough? I know some people on here will say its plenty for a htpc, but online looking up my symptoms alot of people say get a better psu?

Dont want to waste money though.

Even though the A10 5800k is integrated it is also the highest speed amd integrated chip i found, online looking up recommendations for a psu for the A-10 lead to suggestions of a 430-450w bronze certified....

Was considering this, found a few recommendations for this psu with the A10, but again I dont know if its a psu issue or the likely hood it is. While my psu was well rated on ncix.com where i ordered, looking around newegg, its not getting good reviews especially for stability. This was one recommended instead.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151074
Edited by Murilo - 3/7/13 at 12:39am

Seen a post elsewhere having this problem with the same motherboard, I have no other ram to try, but he said the problem was his ram was bad.

I ran memtest for 2 hours (2 passes) (I know some say run it 12hours to an entire weekend) but i figured this should be good enough, the ram is 2 months old, i guess i can let it run more another night, but it returned no errors.

One thing i noticed is memtest listed the ram as DDR 2, i have DDR 3...


I am running out of ideas, i guess i may take it to a shop but considering the rarity and complete randomness of the issue, i am worried they are going to charge me an arm and a leg to find what the problem is, or even to see the error requires pure luck when rebooting or booting from off.


Couldnt i just get a BSOD or something, maybe a beep code, maybe a pattern even to reproduce the problem!
Edited by Murilo - 3/9/13 at 5:41am

Also did a sfc /scannow and nothing, everything was fine with windows files.