Matsonic mobo only boots once without reset... ?

[Michael 23]

After a series of unfortunate events, my machine is now up and running
with a matsonic mobo # ms8308ep(266)

Installed winxphome, did the activation thing, all is well except... I
can only boot once without a strange problem. Try to restart, and I
cant get past the windows loading screen.

What happens is this... windows xp starts to load, the little bar
scrolls across 2 or 3 times, and then the video goes out. PC seems to
be loading, can't tell for sure cause ctrl+alt+del does nothing, so I
dont really know.

Anyway, here is the clue: if I reset the bios (with the jumper by the
cmos) I can boot again - once - just fine. I get the bios warning "CMOS
memory size wrong" and a choice for F1/setup or F2/load default and
continue. But F2 does the trick, windows loads perfectly and I am in.

However, if I restart, I go back to no video once windows starts to
load.

I can boot up in safe mode no problem at any time. But I can only get
back to windows if I reset the CMOS (jumper).

This makes me think it is something in the bios... but what? What could
the setting be that would cause this???

 

[Michael 23]

I already tried swapping the cmos batt just in case... but I am only
getting that error because I am resetting the mobo. On the next boot
there is no cmos warning.

I think this must be some sort of bios / vid driver thing, but have no
idea how to proceed.

I dl'd the mobo's vid driver from matsonic (i have no setup cd for this
board) an installed it, xp grabbed it and I thought 'yes!' but still no
change... ???

 

[Michael 23]

HAH!
Went into safe mode... uninstalled 'display adapter' in device manager,
and rebooted... 3 times now with no problems!

maybe I screwed something up with the matsonic vid driver... geesh.

anyway, thank you very much for your help & suggestions... fingers
crossed, but so far all seems well.