[lamarkid7]

My computer has been running since last night. I think it has passed the "Heat Test" and I only have the minimum hooked up to it. The CPU is staying relatively cool at about 111 degrees F. However I have noticed that the CMOS screen will freeze up after a long period of time, I would guess around 30 or 40 minutes. I left the computer running in the CMOS monitoring screen in order to keep track of the temperature and this morning I noticed that I could not do anything. I think this rules out the heat problem because it is not shutting down because of high CPU temperature or any high temperature for that matter including motherboard and chipsets.

Tonight I think I will reseat the CPU and see if that does anything.

 

[manic]

List all hardware specs, including power supply wattage and brand.
Is this a new build?

 

[lamarkid7]

Yes this is a new build.

-Nvidia Nforce Sli Motherboard
-ATX 650w PSU
-PNY 2Gigs, DDR2, PC2-5300, Optima Dual Channel memory kit. 1Gig per stick
-An older TDK CD drive
-An older 20.0Gig Hard drive
-Intel Core 2 Duo 3Ghz, E8400, LGA 775, 6Mb L2 Cache with stock fan and heat sink
-ATI graphics card, nothing special a small card just so I can see my monitor
-USB keyboard/Mouse
-Dell Flat screen monitor

I’m hoping that this motherboard is not toast. When I try to load Windows XP Pro it will get to 11% and then just freeze up, and sometimes the monitor will shut off. Also I have noticed that the 11% is during a certain file called “Driver.cab” which is the stopping point. That is if my computer loads up properly in order to get there… I need help…

 

[manic]

Have you tried a different cdrom drive? Have you tried just one stick
of ram? Are you sure all standoffs are in the right position? One standoff
in the wrong spot can cause problems. Is the ram you are using on the
qvl for the motherboard? What brand psu do you have? If its a generic
psu, that could be a issue, you need at least 26amps on the 12volt
rail/rails for a pci-e video card and at least 18amps for a agp card.
Ive never had any luck with pny ram, from my experiences with it.
Are your bios settings correct, make sure that if you are not in a raid
array, that raid is disabled in bios, also make sure that your video setting
is right in bios, if your using a pci-e card make sure bios is set to that.
Same with agp..or pci...

 

[lamarkid7]

i think you are correct about the PNY ram my friend. i believe that is the reason why my setup is not working... i have a new SATA hard drive, and a new CD-ROM and Windows XP Pro CD. I have invested to much for this to not work.

 

[Wrench97]

ATI card on a Nforce Nvidia board will drive crazy with driver issues when you do get windows loaded.
What is the Brand and Model of the Motherboard and the Power Supply?

 

[lamarkid7]

all my computer specs are listed above. can bad ram throw a "currupt file" message? or could that possibly be a motherboard issue? i dont want to get new ram if i dont need to.

 

[Wrench97]

Where all I see is
Nvidia Nforce Sli Motherboard
-ATX 650w PSU
They make more then 1 model of each last I looked.

 

[lamarkid7]

motherboard is an nvidia 680i sli, psu is ATX 650W...

 

[aturner]

He's looking for the brands of the equipment. For example Gigabyte Asus Foxconn etc -and the model of each component.
Like saying Ford Ranger XLT. What you are saying is I have a v6 engine when the problem may be more model specific.

Personally I'm confused, in the first list of components you say "older cd rom and hard drive"
but in the following post you say you have a new cd rom drive and new hard drive.
Did you replace your older equipment?

Is your cd brand new? Since it does start installing it sounds to me like the cd may be scratched or damaged or you have a weak laser on the cd rom. This would not explain the system hanging up before that happens but really if it posts successfully I am having a hard time seeing why it would not boot. That's not really the right term but the proper sequence should go something like POST then error message saying no OS is found unless you have your installation disk in the drive and it automatically boots from CD. Take your disk out and power your machine on a few times and see if it does this(give no os error message) Most hardware problems I have seen are usually indicated by the machine not posting properly. Do you have the POST displayed during start up or is it a splash screen? Do you have an internal speaker to hear beep codes?
I think also you mean BIOS when you are saying CMOS. I can't remember seeing a situation using XP where i had to mess with bios too much before an install. My last Vista install was a bee and i had to find the magical setup combination for it to work but xp has always cooperated with me, unless I was using a jacked up disk. It may give an error about not finding the files but sometimes it won't.

There are so many particulars that could cause this but to check the ram you could put it in a friends computer and see if it works. This time of year is real dry in my area and typical during winter, the chances or blasting an ESD are a lot higher so be careful messing with internals. If for whatever reason the cd was burnt and done so on a weak cd rom drive that could cause problems too. Happened to me a lot with linux.
Try one stick of RAM as suggested above. I'm not sure what happens when you try using an incompatible RAM mobo combination, seems to me that it wouldn't post at all but I could be wrong. And faulty RAM would give some kind of stop error, but again I could be wrong. Could be SATA/IDE settings in bios.
making a video and posting it on youtube may help us help you. I imagine a crappy one made with a digital camera would suffice.

For what it's worth I always use a PS2 mouse and keyboard until OS is up and running. Helps avoid bios navigation problems.