Fatal error and POST mem test fail outta no where

Hi guys, i have a problem that has me pretty stumped.

First things first:
OS: Win7 x64 ultimate
Processor: AMD Athlon x2 running at 2.4ghz
Ram: 3gb of ram (4 sticks total)
Video: (MSI) radeon 4850
HDD: 500gb sata
Only thing i changed was a new wireless mouse a few weeks back.

Ok, ever since i upgraded to Win7 (From XP approximately 5 month ago ) i would get video card errors. That being, my screens went black, and would come back on after a few seconds with windows saying my graphics driver had stopped responding but it has recovered, or a BSOD. NOTE: This mainly took place while watching videos online, never while playing games, but I chalked it up to a bad install of Win7 or poor driver support after doing some trouble shooting of my own.

Well, tonight my computer crapped out hardcore.
I was watching some youtube, and my sound and video stuttered and my computer rebooted. No BSOD or anything. Upon reboot, after POST i get a message that said
"Fatal error: Failed to locate necessary table(s) to make adjustments"
after reading some stuff online, the recommended steps to solve this is are:

1. Boot the machine with your Win7 install Disc.
2. Select "Safe Mode Command Prompt"
3. Log on as Admin
4. Select Repair when prompted.
blah blah blah

the thing is i cant.

I boot from the dvd and it says "windows is loading files" and hangs there.
If i don't boot from the dvd, i have 2 options. I can either start windows normally (it hangs at the main windows screen with the loading animation) or do a repair (it hangs at the "windows is loading files" screen as well.)

I did some more research and found that sometimes its a graphics card issue. i swapped it out for an old ATI All in wonder i had laying around. the 1st time i booted it from the dvd with the old card, i got as far as getting it to boot into safe mode. While booting into safe mode it hung at disk.sys. Any boot after that i couldn't get any father than the "windows is loading files" screen.

I did however change the BIOS settings to preform a Memory test on boot. (opposed to the quick boot where it skips it)
That failed.

I'm confused on to where the problem lies. Is it Hard drive, RAM, or graphics card?

I personally don't think its my graphics card, i tried the only 2 i have, and nothing really changed.
I'll try to pull out different sticks of ram tomorrow and see if i can eliminate that.
But any help is appreciated from the masterminds here.

If it is Harddrive, should i go SSD or is that just a fad lol

 

You didn't mention what mobo you have, if it has onboard graphics, I would remove any aftermarket graphics cards, use the onboard graphics. Then remove ALL of any existing video drivers, and clean up with CCleaner . Then find latest driver for the video card you want and download it. Install card. Install driver.
That SHOULD work, if you are not having other issues .
Certainly doesn't sound like a Hard Drive problem to me, and I doubt if SSD is going to be a fad . I got a corsair F40, put windows 7 on and I boot from cold off to working desktop in 30 seconds .
SSD's are reliable, power efficient, and getting cheaper and higher capacity all the time.

 

for the record, I have a Abit K-n9, no on board graphics.

But its seams to be ok now.
I got home from work and booted it up and watched it fail the mem test. Then I pulled out one of my ram sticks. (its was in slot 4) it also happened to be the 1st one i pulled out.
i booted, and it passed the mem test, and i was able to boot from the dvd and repair windows. i rebooted a couple times, and everything seemed to run ok.
I reinstalled the same ram stick in the same spot, and it passed the mem test again.
I'm still unsure what exactly was the problem. No hardware changes were made except the removal of the one ram stick, but i put it back.

The only thing now, is that one of my monitors (im running dual 20's) won't display once in the OS.
POST screens show fine on it, and the windows loading animation as well, but once i'm in the OS, it goes down.
Catalyst Control Center and windows shows its connected, but won't let me extend my desktop or do anything to it.
I'm not sure if this is related.

Thanks for the reply.

 

disregard that bit about the monitors, i reinstalled the drivers and all is well now.