XP Home Startup-Frustration!

[dodger]

Eight out of Ten times the PC starts up fine and operates normally as
expected along with
the software installed. The other two startups lock part way through the
black screen with the Windows Logo on and nothing other than restart,
sometimes normal but mostly
in Safe Mode will get the PC to fire up.
I have tried repair, reformat/re-installs to no avail. To check the PC out
fully I uninstalled,
reformatted HDD and installed Win98SE which run a dream to hangs or
anything, so XP
home was re-installed and for about a week I had no problems with start ups.
All was updated with the exception of SP2. SP installed and it started
again with the bad start ups, so it was removed to no avail.
Reformat and Fresh install minus SP and its back to the 8/10 ok situation.
Before I finally bin Windows XP and try other operating systems that will
start has anybody any ideas please Stuff like upto date BIOS
etc all done

 

[JaKar]

Might try testing your RAM, a stick could be a little
faulty. Windows XP is very picky about RAM. Download
MemTest 86 and let it go through at least 3 loops. The
faster your CPU and RAM the better, the less time it will
take. (There is about 7 tests per loop).

Download either version 3.2 (memt32.zip) or 3.1a
(memt31a.zip), I think I'm using 3.1a. Unzip the files
and make sure you have a blank floppy disk formatted
beforehand. Run the executable and it will copy the files
to the disk. When its done, re-start your computer with
the disk in the drive and let it go.

http://www.memtest86.com/#download1

 

[dodger]

Thanks will give it a go