Computer won't boot

Hey folks, I'm in dire need of help here. I turned my computer off last night and now it won't get past the memory test today. It completes the test, but reboots immediately after. When this happens, it makes like a "tick" sound right as it reboots. Furthermore, this problem is only after a long string of problems that began in June.

The first was that upon cold booting, it would sometimes say that it couldn't find any HDDs. It had to be rebooted repeatedly before finding them finally. I'd heard that sometimes the drives would need time to spin up before they were detected and figured that was it.

Shortly after that, however, the drives would make like a "zzzzzzip... tick" sound and lock up the computer for about five seconds, then go back to normal. This would happen regardless of whether I was in windows or booting. It would do this with various frequency and sometimes if it was severe enough it would cause windows to run chkdsk on bootup (finding some orphaned files and that was it). I figured it was a physical problem with my HDDs, so I replaced them with a new single HDD and all seemed fine for awhile.

Just recently it began the hard drive issue as above on my brand new drive, leaving me to wonder if the drives were the culprit at all to begin with. And now, it won't boot at all. Any ideas?

What's even more odd is that nothing at all has changed on the computer physically since last year, so some component must be dying, I figure, but I don't know what. My theory is that is the PSU, but again, I don't know.

A response sometime today would be much appreciated as I can pick up components before going home from work if I need to.

My specs are:
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard
Athlon XP 3200+
1gb of Corsair Value Select DDR (400mhz) running in Dual Channel mode
300gb Maxtor SATA HDD (previously two 200gb Seagate SATA drives)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
LG DVD burner (don't remember the speeds)

 

Has there been any random problems before this started anything to like force reboots date and time changing randomly slow performance

 

Welcome to MG
Your PSU volt is stable or not ?
how much capacity is it ?

 

Nope, no degrading performance or date/time changes. Beyond the above situation there haven't been any particular symptoms.

Thanks. I knew I'd forgotten to mention something. My PSU is a 400w Antec that's worked admirably for a year. It's not the PSU that came with the case, which died within a few weeks of building the computer last year. The voltage was stable, but not precisely 12v, 5v and 3v (I think that's how it's supposed to go). It was a bit high for 12v (like ~+0.5), about average for 5v and a bit low for 3v (~-0.5).

 

Power supplies are cheap when compared to hdds and memory and if the problem persists than it may be a bios issue which in the bios is the system set to halt on all errors.

 

Good PSU, you meant it will not boot in Windows or you got black screen .
you should test computer spare parts for beep code by each step take them out and put them in seat
there are some thread like this in MG

 

It doesn't get as far as booting windows. It doesn't get past right after the memory test. As far as beep codes are concerned, it's not giving me any other than a single beep (as in everything's fine). I can't get into the bios either, it doesn't get that far before restarting.

 

your in luck The same thing exactly happened to me too. MAN I WAS TRYING FOR EVER TO FIND OUT WHAT IT WAS! It was sorta driving me nuts long story short, You need a new ram stick

 

Sounds good to me since you cant get past the ram test it would be the only thing left.

 

A Single Beep maybe your computer work fine check Your Data monitor cabe,
Are you sure You can not get into bios by Shot cut key?
Clear your bios by jump set or take battery out for a while.

 

I got into the bios once this morning and it rebooted while I was in there, every other time it fails to get into the bios before rebooting. I'll try resetting it by taking out the CMOS battery.

Normally wouldn't it actually fail the memory test if one stick is bad? It's going through the whole mem test and seeing all 1024mb of ram before rebooting. I'll try this anyway and see what happens.

 

lemme know if it works. I like to know if i was helpful

 

Actually no, your not the only one . Just read the thread. A few things come to mind: weak/bad CMOS battery, bad/loose/incorrectly connected IDE cable, PSU not connected correctly to HDD, bad IDE port, bad HDD; and maybe just maybe bad RAM, only because it reboots after RAM check, and an outside chance the PSU isn't putting out enough power.

 

Thanks for all the help folks. I'm still not 100% certain that the issue's been resolved, but everything seems fine now. Here's what happened. I got home, turned it on and it actually booted into windows, but once in it started that ticking sound with the HDD and the frequent pauses. I quickly turned it off, swapped out the PSU, and turned it back on again and since then it's been running smoothly. If the issue arises again then I'll suspect something else, but as long as it works, I'm happy.

Thanks again!