Hi everyone, first post here so any help would be really appreciated;


A few months ago I built my first computer with parts I bought in Akihabara in Tokyo. Had a few problems (flaky Coolermaster Power Supply Unit) but recently reinstalled Win XP and things were OK. Then things started going downhill...

PROBLEM;
When I turn on the computer, the power light is on and the fans spin, but it won't boot, no bios, nothing.
Press RESET switch, it might then start booting, but it will freeze halfway through the boot, getting me stuck on the boot screen, but with no keyboard reaction.
Press RESET again, and I might get past Windows loading screen so I can see my accounts, but the mouse won't move, no keyboard reaction (ctrl+alt+del)won't work.
Press RESET again, and I'll get INTO windows, mouse is OK, but then after 30 minutes the computer will screen.
Press RESET again and I'll get all the way through, Windows is perfect, and I'll finally get to play Call of Duty 4 until I pass out with exhaustion just in case I can never get Windows to work again!

So the wierd things is that by restarting I can often get the process a little bit further along each time, until I'm finally in Windows!

SYSTEM SPECS
CPU: Intel Q6600 (stock Intel fan)
M'Board: Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6
Power Supply Unit; Enermax 500W
RAM: 2x1 Gig (DDR2-800)
Graphics Board: Asus EN8800 GTX HTDP/ 768M
Pioneer DVR-112D
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 (HDT725050VLA)
CM Stacker 830 case
Win XP Professional (SP2)
Logicool G15 Keyboard/ Logicool G5 mouse.
(If you need more let me know)

SOLUTIONS?
1. I don't THINK it is heat. All my fans are turning. I have x3 120MM fans in the door, system fan and front and rear case fans...(What can I say, I'm a sucker for LED case fans)
2. Screwed up BIOS? I flashed the BIOS (twice) using the Gigabyte "@BIOS" software that downloads the latest Bios from the internet...
3. Flaky RAM?

Any solutions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone in advance for your time!

Cheers,
Grey
(I also posted under CPU in hardware as I don't know if this is hardware or software.)

Hi welcome to the forum I'd say failing RAM from the symptoms you could use this to test it Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Thanks for this, I'll give it a try and let you know what happens!


Grey

UPDATE;

Well, I downloaded the MemTEST software MadMatt kindly recommended above, made a CD-Rom and the software ran for 8 hours straight with no error showing up and no problems at all as far as I could see.
(the software showed my CPU as a Core 2, but I have a quad-core machine - although I don't THINK that is a huge problem - the actual memory test didn't show any errors.)

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If I need to post more info let me know.

Thanks and looking forward to your help!

Grey