Warm boot / MUP.sys hang - possible success

Question

Hi,
This post is for information and to hopefully save a lot of pain from others suffering my problems.  However, this appears to be partly an XP software / drivers issue, so the causes of my problems may not be the same things as for others who are suffering the same symptoms.  However, I'd appreciate feedback from other people who have had similar problems.
I've been suffering regularly from warm (and cold) boot hangs - these occur after POST and RAID setup screens, and I either get a black screen or the Windows logo (part transparent).  When choosing safe or debugging mode, the problem always occurs after MUP.sys.  There is a big thread about MUP.sys hangs at Annoyances.com, which identifies a number of possible causes / solutions, many of which appear (to me) to be unlikely.  These include:
1) Problems with USB2.0 (conflicts or a lack of power) - Remove USB devices and try to boot again
2) Problems with Power distribution (either a weak power supply or poor power distribution across the board causing instability in either memory, Processor, or USB)  - Solution may be to up core voltage slightly.
3) The Windows XP setup used an "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" instead of one of the other options - either change the setting or toggle (enable / disable) the ACPI setting on your mobo (Note, articles I have seen do not recommend changing these settings, but it seems that both Hardware and Software need to match ACPI settings (on or off) for it to boot)
4) Issues with the BIOS - try setting to defaults / adjusing various settings
5) Software installation / drivers causing conflicts.  - Appears possible, but is certainly not clear-cut.  [Note: My boot issues often get worse after I install something new]
6) Miscellaneous others (including cluttered drives, virus infestation, etc)
At one point this evening, I simply left my PC in its "hung" state, and came back to it later.  Eventually (after more than 1/2 hr, I believe) the machine DID boot into Windows, but my SATA RAID array had disappeared from my disk list (I have XP installed on a normal IDE partition, and use a RAID array for programmes & media files).
It has proved of great help to me to ensure I had the "Bootlog" setting enabled.  This writes a file to ntbtlog.txt in the windows directory, and you can sometimes interrogate this to see where the boot was failing.  Of course, other times XP never gets to write to the file, soit can prove useless.  In my case, the log showed the system apparently failing at the "processor" installation, with good boots usually showing "Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\AmdK8.sys" immediately after MUP.sys, while bad boots showing "Did not load driver ACPI Uniprocessor PC" immediately after MUP.sys.
This does not provide infallible evidence that it is *that* driver that is the problem, but it may be an indication.
The issue of missing my SATA RAID disk also made me check those drivers, and I noted that the NVidia 4.24 XP RAID and IDE driver were dated 13/1/04, which was identical to that in my System32/Drivers directory.  However, I then saw that the MSI 5.03 drivers were more recent - the IDE drivers in that distribution are dated 3/6/04.
This confused me as I had already installed the 5.03 drivers (the install programme initially "hung" on the SW drivers, and I had to run in Safe mode under "Windows 2000 compatibility" in order to make it run).  I was therefore a bit annoyed to find that the IDE drivers had not "taken".
I therefore browsed to the directory and chose "install" from right-clicking the XXX.inf files.  However, this also made no difference, and my System folders stubbornly maintained the 13/1/04 drivers despite a reboot and another try to install using the main MSI / NVidia install programme.
In the end, I manually selected each IDE and RAID device from device manager and forced a driver update, pointing the update programme at the MSI driver directory.  This finally caused the driver update (which does appear to have sorted out some of my problems).
However, I still had some boot failures, and took Creative's advice ( http://dmzweb4.europe.creative.com/htmlhelp/general/acpi.htm ) and downgraded my "ACPI Uniprocessor PC" driver to an "Advanced configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC".  In hindsight I am not certain this was the correct move, as it appears to be a one-way process (without doing a re-install of Windows) and is not recommended by microsoft (see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=309283 ).
I also considered the possibility of the processor not getting enough juice (should be unlikely with a 33A 12V power supply) and I upped the core voltage to 1.55.
I have had a boot hang since the voltage was upped, so I'm not convinced of its help.  However, with all 3 "solutions" applied, I have had 4 good boots now. I'm hopeful the problem will at least be helped, if not solved.
Anyone got any additional helpful thoughts?
Cheers,
David

Answer 1

I am having this exact issue and I have no idea what to do!
When I restart, (warm boot) I will often hang after POST.
When I cold boot, I never hang after POST.
When I get to the windows loading, I get the windows logo, but faded.  (It changes from black to the Windows logo, and it dies somewhere inbetween.)
About 1 in 5 boots I will work.
I'm using the latest drivers for everything, and this is a fresh install of XP SP2 onto a RAID 0 array.
(MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum)
Help!