sometimes boots and then reboots but most nothing happens - help, please

[nesredep egrob]

A spare computer with an Asus P4S800 MB, 1500GB memory and a 320GB+200 GB WD
drives gave up the ghost. Investigation found that the 320B had an intermittent
motor so that drive was placed in an external cage and connected via USB2 to a
spare capacity in the W2K computer to save the data.
Drive was exchanged under guarantee FOC at the shop where purchased.

New drive was very intermittent also but occasionally would start up showing the
XP pro. Eventually the disk was put in to the W2K and the partitions were
deleted and rebuilt with a new version of XP Pro. It still did not work in the
Asus P4S800 so the motherboard was suspected. New one difficult to obtain as
they were out of date.
An ASUS S5 requiring new case, because of the footprint of the motherboard plus
new memory was set up with the 320GB drive. Of numerous switch-on tries after
fiddling with the bios it did just on one occasion show an apology for not
starting XP Pro but it immediately rebooted.

Same thing is happening with the WD diagnostic floppie in that no sooner do you
get booted up and the computer re-boots immediately. The bios when in mode for
switching boot up preferences explains that items in brackets are unavailable.
That means that the floppie, CD Rom and the IDE drive are in that state. I
cannot see a way to make any differences there.

The computer does not look at any of the above for booting and indeed bios show
that the Hard Disk is faulty and suggest that I save data and replace it. The
re-seller has had the drive for test and insists that it is in working
condition. Remember that the CD Rom and floppie are just as unwilling to do any
work at all. The only thing I can do with the computer is to run bios.

I am totally at a loss to understand how to go from here. No hurry - I do have
the W2K to be going on with but other family members want to be on line also -
so please help.

PS. I have tried to run the disk in the W2K but again there is trouble in
getting it to boot.

B|rge
Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

I would consider checking the Ram. The restart is certainly one of the
things to be expected from failing Ram. Take out half, if possible, and
test, put in the other half, alone, and test.
All that stuff with the other drives also points at something wrong on the
Mo-Bo. I would first suspect a bad memory slot.

 

[nesredep egrob]

I would consider checking the Ram. The restart is certainly one of the
things to be expected from failing Ram. Take out half, if possible, and
test, put in the other half, alone, and test.
All that stuff with the other drives also points at something wrong on the
Mo-Bo. I would first suspect a bad memory slot.

Well I should maybe not presume all is well because it is new from the start.
Remember that the later MB take a different Ram with an offset notch so you
cannot get the old ram in a new MB.
The only thing old is the 320 WD drive and that was an exchange from the dealer.
I am losing faith as far as Western Digital is concerned. I shall put the old
P4S800 together again and have further tests.

I think I mentioned that the floppie, CD Rom and Dsik Drive were all mentioned
as disabled in what they call another area that I cannot find!

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia