Boot Failure

[Kitson]

Running XP Pro, Clean install and still halting during boot.
Gets to Windows boot screen with moving blue dotted line and then halts, as
if it's thinking, but never resumes.
Last couple of weeks have been having this problem. Thought was HD about to
fail, removed replaced, reinstalled system........what's going on? Do Mother
Boards fail, and how do you know? Machine is 5 yrs. old.
Help!

 

[Richard Urban]

Yes, motherboards do fail - just like all electronic equipment. There is no
test to determine a defective M/B. The determination is made by a process of
elimination of all simpler trouble shooting methods. When everything else
has been tried (many times by substituting a known good part) the only thing
left is the M/B.

A rule of thumb I have found useful is "When you have strange and
unexplained occurrences, replace the system RAM" It's truly amazing how many
times this will solve a problem! Unless the problem is obvious this is one
of the first things I now try, as it only takes a few minutes to determine
if it will solve the problem.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Rodney]

Yes, motherboards do fail - just like all electronic equipment. There is no
test to determine a defective M/B. The determination is made by a process of
elimination of all simpler trouble shooting methods. When everything else
has been tried (many times by substituting a known good part) the only thing
left is the M/B.

A rule of thumb I have found useful is "When you have strange and
unexplained occurrences, replace the system RAM" It's truly amazing how many
times this will solve a problem! Unless the problem is obvious this is one
of the first things I now try, as it only takes a few minutes to determine
if it will solve the problem.

Well, there are tests to test MB's, however I do agree RAM is a often
likely place to start and there are tests for RAM also if you do not
have any to swap.

Google (or your favourite search engine) could probably help you find MB
diagnostics, one called Diag comes to mind but I think it only ran from
DOS so you would need a DOS boot disk. There are are several memory
testers, Doc Memory and Memtest86 come to mind but you could Google and
select the one you want to use.

Rodney