problem starting up

[axis_d]

Hey everyone. well I came here awhile ago, and using tips from the forum I built my PC almost two years ago. I haven't had any problems with it until recently alot of weird stuff has been happening when I start it up, and I'm not sure whats going on.

the latest thing its been doing is, when i restart alot of times it doesn't boot up completely. It'll go to the windows XP screen, then from there it'll go to a black screen and just stay like that forever unless I push the restart button. If i restart it enough times, eventually it'll boot up properly. But anyone got any ideas on what could be causing this?

Like I said, im using windows XP, but let me know if there's any other system specs you need to advise me on what to try.

[shadowpr]

Please list complete system specs.

Have you made any changes recently?

[Cricket]

Would also help if you can describe in detail all the other problems you've been having...it'll help to narrow down the cause of the problems (software or hardware related...or both).

Cricket

[axis_d]

Ok, First the specs:

Motherboard: Asus P4C800-E
CPU: Pentium 4 2.6 GHz
Ram: 1GB Corsair DDR
Video Card: Radeon X800 GTO (using two CRT monitors)
Sound Card: E-MU 1820m audo interface
Power supply: Antec 380w
Hard Drive: One 80 GB SATA drive, and one 240 GB SATA.
Modem: Netgear WG311T wireless PCI adapter
Drives: Lite-ON DVD RW, and Sony DVD ROM

And as far as the other problems, there's two that come up specifically. One of the problems is a blue screen that pops up and says "unknown hard error". It happens randomly either when I restart the computer, or just power it on. Usually if I restart it again, it'll boot up properly afterwards. The other problem is, every once in a while, when I try to run a program (its happened with several different programs) I'll get a blue screen that says something to the effect of : "A problem has been detected,your computer has been shut down to prevent damage" then it says something about contacting the manufacturer , and something about dumping physical memory. I didn't write it all down, but its something like that. Hope this info is useful? I can still get my computer to work now, but I'm worried if I dont fix this stuff its gonna crash permenantly, thanks!

[flanzig1]

Would start by running some diagnostic programs on the HD and ram. The "Ultimate Boot CD" has these diagnostics on it. Would also check in the BIOS to see what the PSU voltages are, if not in the +/- 10% of listed voltage then that could cause some odd problems. Would check inside the PC for dust build-up on heatsinks. Dust build-up can cause overheating.