brandon1232

Hello

I have a Maxtor 6Y160MO SATA 160GB/150MB hard drive that came from a Dell Demension 4600. The hard drive is 4 years old, and in those four years it has been used nearly every day; sometimes active for 3 to 5 days at a time. Furthermore, it has be formatted about 50 times in those 4 years.
Anyway, I just replaced my old motherboard with a new ASUS M2A-VM, an AMD Athlon X2 5400, and 2Gigs of A-DATA RAM. I kept my "old" HDD and installed Vista Ultimate.
Now when I boot up my LCD remains blank, no POST beep, and the HDD LED will come on w/o blinking & go off after about 10 seconds. Usually I power off & on about 3 or 4 more times I finally I will hear a POST beep and my computer boots up to VISTA. Also, as the OS is loading there is quite a bit of "activity" noise coming from the HDD before it quiets down. Sometimes when I open a program or move my mouse I will get the BSOD. Also, sometimes it will just freeze. Overall thats about 50 percent of the time.
Oh yeah I assumed it was VISTA so I decided to format the HDD and install XP. I booted up with Dan's BOOT & NUKE. When I tried to format the HHD I got an error message " ...bad sectors...etc". I guest that is a sign...da.
Anyway, is it time to invest in a new HDD or is it VISTA?

Thanks,
Brandon1232

Deleted090308

Hi

Sounds like you have an underpowered system or a bad power supply.
Please post the system specifications, including PSU brand/model.

Check the voltages in BIOS - what's the +12V?

brandon1232

Hello

Well I replaced my 350 watt/24 pin Ultra PSU with a "never been used" 400 watt/20 pin PSU. Unfortunately, the problem did not go away. Eventually I was to pwer up my computer again after 8 hours of trying a multitude of possible fixes. The computer finally came back to life after I booted up using the ASUS C.P.R. system CD. But I don't think that fixed anything - I believe it was an answer to a desperate prayer.

Anyway you wanted me to post my system specs:

ASUS M2A-VM mobo/ BIOS v.1602
Vcore 1.31 volts
3.3 Voltage is 3.36
5V is 5.02 volts
12V is 12.22 volts

Freezer 64 Pro cpu fan
cpu temp 48c
MoBo temp 41c
Fan speed 2436

CPU frequency 200 MHz/ frequency Multiplier on AUTO

Integrated ATI Xpress 1250 sharing 128MB of memory (no PCIex)
A-Data value RAM 1.8 volts
Ultra 350 watt 24 pin PSU

If you anymore specs let me know.

Thanks

Deleted090308

Of course you may have a faulty HDD - but there are additional problems - most likely PSU related, IMO.

Do you have a video card installed?

Start the computer with the Windows XP CD.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to select the repair option.
You will have to enter the Administrator password - if none, just press <Enter>.
In the recovery console - type chkdsk /r > press <Enter>.
When the disk check is done:
Type Exit > press <Enter>.
Take the Windows disc out and reboot.

brandon1232

I finally discovered the problem. It was the RAM. After I removed one of the dual channel RAM sticks (2x1Gigs/DDR2/800 MHz) my mother board posted. Furthermore, no more freezes, or BSOD.
Also, after reading the motherboard manuals QVL I noticed that my dual channel A-Data RAM may not be the optimum memory for this motherboard. These new motherboards are so "picky" when comes to RAM.
So far all is well with 1gig of RAM installed and my nightmare has ended.
My HDD is on the way out so I purchased a WD SATA 300/250GB. In addition to that purchase I plan to buy 4gigs of Kingston RAM.

Thanks for the help.

Deleted090308

I'm glad you found a solution.