Hi,

My PC occasionally fails to boot. It hangs just BEFORE the 'Verifing DMI pool data...' text appears, on the screen which displays connected hardware etc. It only happens about 1 time in 10 or so. My PC is otherwise fine, and I have no stability problems.

Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing it, or what diagnostic measures I could take in order to find out?

Thanks

I,ve seen this several times but you will have to try to localise it since its so infrequant.It could be a couple of things.If you have more than optical drive I would disconnect one of them at a time and try it for awhile. If after trying each one and still have problem then go to modem, sound card if not onboard and do same.Do you have more than one stick of ram? If so do the same one at a time till your satisfied. Its a process of elimination just be patient trying each on.  My gut is its the RAM or poss a optical drive. Just suggest based on what I have found more than one occasion!! Good Luck!

USB devices have also been known to cause booting problems.  I can't boot with my iPod plugged in for some reason. 

 Unplug all USB peripherals and reconnect them after sucessfully booting. They might be a some hardware failure or overheating.

Beleive it or not my systems does the same time now and again. I think it is either a sata initialization problem or a memory adressing area. However my system operates fine stable etc otherwise. It has actually done this for quite a while and no dead system or anything else. All it ever takes is a reboot. I thought it was a specific memory problem on my DFI MB but after seeing it for as long as I have and noticing the error I thinks it's older ati sata controlers at least for mine.

My son had this problem and it to would stop  just BEFORE the 'Verifing DMI pool data...so after some testing found it was his 2nd optical drive replaced the drive problem solved. But also on other occasions I found memory problems ide controllers!