Howdy people.
The other day I was having problems booting up windows (XP), and the PC would not load past the BIOS menu/info. I have quite a few cards and two ram sticks installed, (which were running flawlessly by the way), and I have heard that a quick 'jostling' of your cards and RAM can sort out a few probs......HOWEVER! My PSU then blew up:cry: , and after I have installed the new one, same problem as before. Either it freezes at the bios menu, or a couple of times it has told me to insert the Windows disk, as something is corrupt, ("press 'r' at next screen to repair"), but the 'next screen' never loads.
Most of the time however, the OS doesn't even start to load, (no beep!), and my monitor is left looking empty and lonely!
I have been advised to buy new RAM, but I obviously want to try and resolve the problem before shelling out ?50!

PLEASE HELP, my dream machine is but a hollow husk, and Counter Strike doesn't play itself!

My basic stats:

Windows XP pro
120GB HD
P4 3.0GHZ
1024mb DDR RAM
ATI 9600 Graphics card
EMU 1212M sound card

Hi Snakeford, welcome to PHCF.
Sounds like a nasty problem. Try booting with everything 'unnecesary' removed. So the bare motherboard with one ramstick, a videocard (when you have no onboard video) and your harddrive attached.
And take a look at what happens. If your system still causes problems, try the same config but with the other ram module.
Also check these:
- all your cables to see if they're connected the way they should
- the wattage of your psu, if it cannot supply enough power you're likely to encounter problems
- the motherboard for 'burnmarks' something could have been fried

Have you removed all static electricity off of yourself before touching anything in your computer? When you haven't there is a, slim, chance, you electrocuted one of your components.

Good luck, Bram