Boot up problem

[Binh]

Okay, so after I built my PC, it worked fine until today. Whenever I turn it on, it goes through all the normal operations until it gets to the blue Windows screen with the two dark blue stripes on the bottom. It just freezes at that screen. I tried booting in safe mode once, but it still froze.

One odd thing I noticed is that I set my monitor to turn off after two minutes, and the computer still does that even though it's frozen at the blue screen.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

[glc]

Full specs, please.

[Binh]

Okay, scratch that. It doesn't freeze, it just hangs on that screen for a long time, like 4~5 minutes long. What does that mean?

Specs:

Amd Athlon 64 3700+
Asus A8n5x
1gb crucial ballistix ram
6800xt
80gb seagate barracuda sata
NEC DVD drive
thermaltake 430w

[glc]

Something is hanging up the loading process. I'd examine the startups carefully and also see how many USB devices are connected. It would not hurt to run ram and hard drive diagnostics.

If that power supply is a TR2 W0070, it's not suitable for a PCI-E build. It's shy on +12v power. It's not ATX 2.0 spec, which PCI-E builds really do need. Not saying this is your problem, but it's something you need to be aware of. The video card *could* be giving you grief because of this though.

[Binh]

It doese the same thing when I shutdown or restart. It hangs at the blue screen for 4~5 minutes before actually shutting off. If it was the power supply, it would have trouble shutting off, would it?

Are any of these diagnostics free? What are some good ones?

[glc]

The Ultimate Boot CD has all the diagnostics you would ever want. There are about 4 different ram diags and hard drive diags for every major manufacturer.

[Binh]

"For those of you interested in a Windows version of the Ultimate Boot CD, you might want to check out this project initiated by Ben Burrows."
-Ultimate boot cd homepage

What? Ultimate Boot cd isn't for windows?

[glc]

The Ultimate Boot CD is a BOOT CD - doesn't matter WHAT OS is on the computer. You boot with it.

[Staren]

Ah ok, I see what the deal is. This Windows verson of The Ultimate Boot CD is just a windows interface based off of the Windows graphical installer. It also looks like it has a few extras for Windows repairs and NTFS partition work. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Binh]

How many times should I run each diag? So far I ran memtest86 four times with no errors.

[glc]

Four passes should be fine. Move on to hard drive diagnostics.

[grabpenny]

I just finished building my first PC. It starts, I get to the Bios screen then it shuts off. Am I missing something?

[glc]

Please start your own thread.

[Binh]

I ran the hard drive diags. I ran two generic ones and a through ones. My hard drive pased all tests with no probs. Now what?

Edit: Okay, now usb drives are not working, kind of. Whenever I plug a usb storage device of some kind into the computer, it recognizes that a usb plug is used, but the storage volume doesn't show up in my computer. I tried update the drivers on my motherboard, but it says that since I have service pack 2, I don't need the usb drivers.