Freaky Bootup Problem!

[spong_miester]

Hey guys

I'm sorting this PC out for a friend of mine but cannot sort the problem out.

What is happening is that on bootup the POST screen goes really really slow the ram count must have taken about 10 minutes to count a 1Gig once it does finish the windows boot screen is damaged as in half the image is missing, I'm thinking that is a graphics card problem as it boot into safe mode fine but not normal windows.

All my fellow IT guys just laughed at me and said they had never seen anything like it

Specs are as follows

ASUS A7N8X-X
ASUS V8170DDR AGP
1Gb DDR
Athlon XP 3500+
Hitatchi 100Gb HDD
Windows XP Home

Any Help would be nice

spong_miester

[peterb]

Start by downloading and running memtest to check that the RAM is OK.

[MadduckUK]

are you exaggerating with 10 mins? do you just mean it takes a lot longer than usual?

[vinnyT]

Do as peterb suggests, use memtest (Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool ) to check your ram. Another poss. is the memory on your gfx card (don't know if memtest checks that, doubt it).

You could try re-seating the gfx card, vibration can (after time) make the cards slightly loose in the port so the connection isn't too good.

[stevie lee]

try resetting bios, if you've got two ram sticks swap them around (i don't know why this works it just does, my A7N8X mobo suffers occasional memory read failures, this cures it every time, no amount of fiddling in bios/drivers etc works), then reboot

or have you installed new graphics drivers lately?, boot into safe mode and put previous back on.

[spong_miester]

Problem solved rolled back drivers like stevie lee suggested but still had problem so bought a Geforce 6600GT off a mate works fine now.

Thanks For The Help Everyone