Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
programs I recommend for burn-in testing are GIMPS (
www.mersenne.org/freesoft
) and OCCT
(
www.ocbase.com
).
When you are running GIMPs (also known as Prime95), under the Options menu select Torture Test.
This causes the program to fully load all the processors and processor cores in the system for
maximum stress testing. While doing this, I also like to run the free SpeedFan
(
http://almico.com/speedfan.php
)
or HWMonitor (
www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
)
program to monitor the temperatures of the processor and other components in the system. Stress
testing like this is a good way to ensure that everything is working properly in both new and old
systems.
The Boot Process
The term
boot
comes from the word
bootstrap
and describes the method by which the PC becomes
operational. Just as you pull on a large boot by the small strap attached to the back, a PC loads a large
operating system by first loading a small program that can then pull the operating system into memory.
The chain of events begins with the application of power and finally results in a fully functional
computer system with software loaded and running. Each event is triggered by the event before it and
initiates the event after it.
Tracing the system boot process might help you find the location of a problem if you examine the
error messages the system displays when the problem occurs. If you see an error message that is
displayed by only a particular program, you can be sure the program in question was at least loaded
and partially running. Combine this information with the knowledge of the boot sequence, and you can
at least tell how far the system's startup procedure had progressed before the problem occurred. You
usually should look at whichever files or disk areas were being accessed during the failure in the
boot process. Error messages displayed during the boot process and those displayed during normal
system operation can be hard to decipher. However, the first step in decoding an error message is
knowing where the message came from—which program actually generated or displayed it. The
following programs are capable of displaying error messages during the boot process:
OS Independent
• Motherboard ROM BIOS
• Adapter card ROM BIOS extensions
• Master (partition) boot record (MBR)
• Volume boot record (VBR)
OS Dependent
• System files
• Device drivers
• Programs run at startup
The first portion of the startup sequence is
operating system independent
, which means these steps
are the same for all PCs no matter which operating system is installed. The latter portion of the boot
sequence is
operating system dependent
, which means those steps can vary depending on which
operating system is installed or being loaded. The following sections examine both the operating
system-independent startup sequence and the operating system-dependent startup process for various
operating systems. These sections provide a detailed account of many of the error messages that might
