my computer has a intermitiend problem that seems to have become perminant. When it boots, it freezes just before or just after the memory check. I cant access bios or boot from cd or floppy. the first time i had this problem was a few days ago, after playing with the memory and wires i got it to boot and reboot fine. I then unplugged everything so i could work on an older pc. after two days i reconected everything to my main computer and it booted and ran fin the entire day. however i shut it down and booted a few hours later, and ended up with the same error. i've tried checking wires at etc, with no luc k.

I have changed memory sticks and the slot the memory is in, i get the same error. removeing the memory give me a memorry error beep. oh and i get one normal beep when i try to boot.

I'm running windows xp pro
P4 cpu
xfx Mach4 845pe-ant mainboard

the computer is self built and about 3 years old.
I suspect the memory slots themselves may be burned out, or the motherboard, i cant ask the manufacturer since they no longer make or support mainboards

if you need more details i'll try and get them on request. I basicly want to know if a new mainboard will fix this or not. I dont have an extra board/cpu, or anouther computer i can test those in.
:cry:

Hi Darcy500 welcome to PCHF,

You could try to download then memtest from this site http://www.memtest86.com/#download0
extratct it and put it onto a floppy boot disk. Run the test and see if your memory fails. Ideally do this in a pc that you know works ( N.B make sure all the power is off to the pc and earthed before you handle the memory as it is very sensitive to static electricity). If it all passes then it shows that the motherboard is faulty and needs replacing.
All the best

ok... heres something wierd in relation to my first post. I had unplugged the computer from the power and taken out the memory stick on the day of my first post. Tonight i stuck the memory back in and attempted to boot the system so i could check the system out, and do a quick backup.

I was actually able to get into bios, note i didnt go into windows first. i looked over some things such as voltage, and cpu temp to make sure it wasent an heat problem. everything looked fine. (i disabled acpi becouse a few weeks ago i had an error comeing up saying windows boot was stopped due to acpi incompatable hardware or something. i didnt get the exact error code becouse it rebooted just after, and seemed to be in a reboot loop. then it booted up fine.)

well i tried rebooting and got a falure to start windows, please choose a mode, well upon selecting one it started to boot windows then rebooted completely. so i went into bios and chose to load optimised configurations, after rebooting, windows came up normally...

well almost normally. at first i didnt catch it, i did a antivirus update and noticed even after updateing, the software said the database was out of date was out of date, however i had just updated it. then i noticed the date on my pc was Jan 3, 2002 and about an hour behind on time. My clock was correct before i had this problem to start with.

Any clues? is my cmos battery going bad, or do those just die suddenly and completly. maybe i have a short on the motherboard. godforbid its my cpu

I did benchmark my memory and everything seems fine, I have some software that gives computer info on software and hardware. :computer_

:smiley: Hey Guys,

@Darcy, my welcome to you as well. I would definitely change the cmos battery, it's an inexpensive fix, and will give you some more information as to what is causing all of these problems.

After changing out the battery, recheck your AV defs and make sure the computer is recognizing the update. You may want to do it again to be sure.

Look forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW