boot error

[inflames988]

Went to turn on my PC this morning and found that once i turned the monitor on it was hanging on a blank screen. rebooted, and saw that while posting, it listed:

CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4400+...

then nothing after it. Normally it would say 2000000k memory ok (or whatever number that is for 2gb of memory).

Rebooted a couple of times and followed the same pattern, I could not even enter setup. Noticing that the LED's on my memory were stuck, i figured it was a memory problem, but here's the kicker. I took out one stick of memory and it passed the posting stage (listing 1gb of memory OK) and went on to hang at a blank screen again like the first time i booted up. I put the two memory sticks in different slots and the same thing happened again. I have tried multiple other configurations, and it seems that it is NOT one of the sticks of memory as far as I can tell because it has booted successfully with each of the two memory sticks on its own. Further, it seems to hang at all different points of the bootup process. Sometimes it will just get to the CPU Part, sometimes it will pass the memory test ok and detect the drives then hang before starting windows, other times windows will post up saying windows didnt start correctly the last time and then freeze AFTER that.

If anyone has insight into what else i can try, that'd be great. I'm going to run memtest 86+ on the one stick now then swap and try the other. My only other guess is maybe a motherboard problem. I don't know if my stuff is still under warranty - bought it all about two years ago today.

Specs are in sig, and thanks in advance! Figures, I built my mom a nice new PC yesterday in about an hour and a half with no issues, got all the drivers installed, and got that whole setup working flawlessly...then the next day my computer blows up

[TwoRails]

Try reseating all your cards. However, the last two times I've had erratic starting problems it was the power supply. Do you have one to test with?

[inflames988]

Originally Posted by TwoRails Try reseating all your cards. However, the last two times I've had erratic starting problems it was the power supply. Do you have one to test with?

I've got a 300W Enlight, but i think its the older 20 pin ATX power connector instead of the new 24.

[TwoRails]

Maybe another system then? One time I placed two system kinda on top of each other and just ran the wires from the "good" system over to the "test" system. It was a little bit of a hassle, but less of a hassle then removing the units.

[inflames988]

Originally Posted by TwoRails Maybe another system then? One time I placed two system kinda on top of each other and just ran the wires from the "good" system over to the "test" system. It was a little bit of a hassle, but less of a hassle then removing the units.

i'll give that a try, i just built a desktop for my mom yesterday with a 500w antec supply. This thing has gone way downhill, now I cant get it to boot at all no matter what. I used a known good stick of 512mb ram and it didnt boot either, so RAM is not the issue, the CPU seems to be working 100% fine. I think your guess of PSU is a good one, though I've never had a thermaltake / enlight unit die on me before....guess they dont make things like they used to!

Ill get back to you with results.

[TwoRails]

Good luck!

[Chris Linder]

I had the same thing happen once. Try downloading a copy of Linix and see if it will let you go to the live CD. If it will , then you need a fresh install of XP or Vista whatever your useing.

[inflames988]

TwoRails - looks like your initial suggestion did the trick. Before hauling the computer all the way downstairs i just unhooked EVERYTHING from the motherboard and PSU, so that i had just enough hardware to boot to windows (video card, ram, CPU, and hard drive), and that no other devices were being powered. I added them back one by one and now it seems to work. I have no idea why but i guess something wasn't seated right or it was just being weird. Hopefully this proves to be a permanent fix and it doesnt happen again. Thanks!