[KolorBlind]

Long story short..........

I had some RAM that was suspected to be faulty due my troubleshooting with some help from a previous post on the site, and my friend suggested that I bring it over and try it in his PC to see if the RAM was bad, or maybe my RAM slot. Well it got put off so I bought another motherboard, popped the RAM in, get the same errors as before (Wont boot to OS, stop errors, random restarts, etc.).
So I called up my friend today, talked him into letting me come over & try my RAM in his board, and it did not exactly go as planned. I have 1 512mb DDR400 and 2ea. 256mb DDR333 sticks of ALL Crucial brand RAM, 1GB total. We put in the 512, and it booted up into windows and opened up Battlefield2 even, so we shut her down, popped in one of the 256's and it started to boot, then clicked and restarted 2 times in a row, popped in the 3rd stick and it wouldnt boot normal, but got it to boot into safe mode. So at this point Iwas thinking that the 512 was the only good one, so we popped it back in to double check (and btw, yes we were putting the modules in DIMM1, closest to the processor) it and it wouldnt boot at all, the screen would just go black after POST, and if we tried to bott into safe mode, it would freeze every time at mup.sys (i think) if that even matters.
Now the worse part about it all is that my buddy popped my ram out, and both of his 256mb modules back in and it was doing the same thing, black screen on normal boot attempt, and freeze at mup.sys on safe mode boot attempt.
Could my RAM have possibly fried one of his slots? The power went out in my house a while back, and my computer started gettin quirky right after that, it has been down for about 3 weeks or more now. I have had this RAM in 2 of my motherboard as well, my old Biostar M7VIT Pro would give mee a repeating long beep and usually not even POST.
If anyone has any ideas of what might do thisor what I should do, other than send the RAM off to Crucial and have them tested and hopefully found bad and replaced. That is the only thing I can come up with but I feel really bad about my friends situation, so if someone can think of something I am missing please let me know.

Thanks in advance
KolorBlind

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For your friend, try reseting the CMOS by shorting Jumper 5 on the motherboard. When you do this make sure to remove the backup battery on the motherboard first, then short the jumper then re-insert the batery and then retart the computer. Oh, and the computer should be off while you do this (i know stupid statement but hey, I some poeple have done it.)

So far as your situation, with the memory and all, have you tried your friends RAM in your motherboard (assuming its compatable)? This would help verify if its a RAM problem or if its a problem with your motherboard.

Also, put all of your RAM modules into your system like you had to begin with, then download and run memtest86, this will tell you wich ram module (if any) is faulty.

Hope this helps!

--Chris

[cheathawk1]

For your friend, try reseting the CMOS by shorting Jumper 5 on the motherboard. When you do this make sure to remove the backup battery on the motherboard first, then short the jumper then re-insert the batery and then retart the computer. Oh, and the computer should be off while you do this (i know stupid statement but hey, I some poeple have done it.)

So far as your situation, with the memory and all, have you tried your friends RAM in your motherboard (assuming its compatable)? This would help verify if its a RAM problem or if its a problem with your motherboard.

Also, put all of your RAM modules into your system like you had to begin with, then download and run memtest86, this will tell you wich ram module (if any) is faulty.

Hope this helps!

--Chris

[warriorscot]

Memtest should be run on individual modules one at a time, i have never heard of RAM causing a slot to be fried but a bad memory stick may have corrupted his windows installation. Tell him to do this, after he has tried resetting the CMOS, you need to get it to go in to safe mode so try one stick of his ram.

1.Click start then run, type sfc /scannow then press enter, you need the XP CD and get a blue progess bar, after the bar goes, reboot.
2.Click start then run, type chkdsk /f /r then press enter, type Y to confirm for next boot, press enter then reboot.
This will take a bit can be as little as 10 minutes or as much as an hour just let it run its course.

[KolorBlind]

OK
Weve tried resetting the CMOS and still cant get it to boot into windows, safe mode or normal mode. We tried it with both sticks, as well as each stick individually. The only change is that after resetting the CMOS, we got a "missing NTFS" error so we popped in another hard drive and we still get the same thing.
Weve tried putting in his windows CD as well and EVERY time it freezes upwhen it gets to "Setup is starting Windows"
In POST, the system scans all 512mb of RAM so I would assume that means the RAM is ok, but I dont know. Hes been beating his head on his desk all day, and I feel terrible, lol. He has a Battlefield 2 match tonight and I am trying my hardest to get this figured out before then.
Any more help that could be provided would be VERY much appreciated, and thanks for all the help thus far.

KolorBlind

[davesfx]

Thanks KB for your post and help from all is welcomed. I am the friend, I am at work now, so I have all day to look stuff up and try it.

Here are my specs current:

Biostar M7NCD MOBO
2x256 Crucial RAM
1 HD 60 gig Maxtor
9800 pro Vid Card.
1 cd/dvd drive.

I have this thing bared out. Since KB has come over, I am having tons of problems.

My main problem right now, is that:

Boot computer with XP cd disk in and it locks up after drivers are loaded and is says "Setup is Starting Windows".

Things I have done.

Resetted CMOS, using Jumper with removal of Battery.
Tried different HD and Ram individually and together.

I have tried different RAM, different HD, different Monitor, Different Vid Card. I have even tried different XP boot Disks.

I have no clue, so if anyone can help I am up to it. I have looked similar problems up and some have cided with HAL and ACPI, but even disabling and choosing a non HAL setup from setup using F5 did no good.

I am not worried about my installation of windows as I am sure it is shot and will recover once I can get to the screen, but it locks up right before that when it reads "Setup is Starting Windows"

Any help is greatly appreciated.

TIA
davesfx

[davesfx]

**BUMP UPDATE**

Ok, so here I am. I have completely tried everything I can except for new mobo and processor. (which if I have to do, I am just going to use the new stuff and see how far I can throw a mobo out the window!!!)

**frustration** **shakes head**

None the less, I have tried to tackle this thing from many different ways.

Things I have tried:
Resetting CMOS (battery out and jumper selected)
Disabled all ACPI and POWER functions
Disabled USB/LAN/AUDIO
(In every order imaginable)

Stripped all hardware to bare minimum. MOBO, CPU, 1x256 RAM, New and Old HD, CD DRIVE, Vid CARD. -- PS2 Keyboard only No Mouse

When booting off of a XP BOOT DISK, I get all the drivers installed up to the point of it reading "Setup is Starting Windows" it flickers then stops. IT WILL NOT GOTO THE RECOVERY SCREEN

When booting from Safe Mode or any other modes, it gets to MUP.SYS and freezes. (what a wonderful topic to Google!)

When trying a regular boot, I get a black screen.

After reading literally a thousand web pages and everybody's ideas and clues, I am still at stand still. I did however get the kick of insane laughter after I read someones way of troubleshooting was to keep rebooting in safe mode till you get it. He said he rebooted 41 times before Windows finally kicked in. **continues to shakes head**

But none the less, if you have something that I haven't tried, please and I beg you, please feel free to post.

[logan11]

I actually had the EXACT problem from simply installing RAM that crucial told me was OK. I had to buy new system restores CD's from HP to fix the problem.

This was like a week ago too :-/

[Doby]

I am confussed over all the ram being swaped around so I would first make sure the ram is compatible with the system it is installed in or better yet but the original ram in both computers but only one stick and run memtest as has been suggested earlier.

Use the bootable floppy version of memtest and let it run for at least 3 passes then post the results back and tell me how long the test (3 passes took).

Rick

[Doby]

Another thought just occurred to me if you guys are doing a format and clean install make sure you use "full NTSF format" and not the quick format

[davesfx]

The Ram that is in there is the original ram that I was previously using, infact, just got back from a lan session and all was well after.

I have limited it down to 1 stick and its compatible. Also, I cant get to a clean drive using the current box, using a bootcd. (I have 3 copies of xp) It locks up after loading drivers and when it says "Setup is Starting Windows" in the blue screen, using the boot cd.

[Doby]

You mentioned that you cleared the cmos and I assume you loaded the bios defaults but have you tried to manually setup the cpu and ram clock in bios?

What cpu do you have?
What speed Ram?

Maybe a low level format of the hardrive would do something but I doubt this as you have tried a different drive

[davesfx]

I have a 2100+ I have tried clocking both 100mhz and 133mhz.

Ram - 2700 333 Ram I have tried slowing it down as well.

I have since run myself silly by even trying different Power Supplies and Reseating the cpu.

I could try the HD (low level) but I have also tried a different HD as well, so I would rather refrain from that, but I am at wits ends, so I could try that tomorrow.

[Doby]

What core cpu is it Thoroughbred or Palomino?
You might have already tried this but,,,,,

If thoroughbred set vcore to 1.6 volt
If palomino set vcore to 1.75

Then set the fsb to 133mhz and the ram clock to 133

In my experiance usually when a os won't load its ram related or bios settings wrong, Amd xp cpu's like to run in sync meaning the ram and the fsb need to be set the same, worth a shot

Rick

[davesfx]

Rick

I will try this after I get off work. I am sure I have, but none the less after 10 hours of testing yesterday, I have boxed this box up and put it in the corner.

I have test the PSU = good
I have tested the RAM = good
I have tested the HD = good
I have tested the cpu = good
I have tested the vid card = good
I have tested the CD = good

I have ran every test possible, and nothing points to a hardware problem.

I have flashed the bios, formatted a new HD and tried using it. But none the less, after placing the XP Boot CD in, it loads the drivers and gets to a point where it states "Setup is Starting Windows" and locks up.

I would like to think its some freak bios issue, but, I set this box up from the ground up and didn't have these problems, so I have no clue what the issue could be. If I could get to the "Install/Recovery Screen" I would be in business.

All help is appreciated.

[Doby]

If you tried the bios settings I suggested just for the [bleep] of it, (but I doubt it will have any differance) I guess it has to be the mobo/bios, but in the start of all this I can't see how changing the ram to your friends ram had anything to do with this, it must be a bug in the bios that can't be fixed.

Maybe look at a Abit or Asus board, I prefer them but I do have one biostar that runs good for a buget board and I use as a test bed so I am always swaping parts in and out but never had this problem.

Sorry I dunno but if you find anything do post here to let me know.

Rick