Shuttle XPC Boot Problems

[aidso]

Hi Guys,

I have owned a Shuttle XPC SP35P2 Pro shuttle for the last year and now out of the blue it has developed some problems starting up. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium legitimate edition and have done virus scans with nothing coming back as out of the ordinary.

Firstly two days ago when I pressed the power button it came up with an error saying something along the lines of the CPU setting being wrong. A quick google suggested resetting my BIOS back to the default settings and that seemed to bypass that error. Now when I start the machine it just hangs on a black screen as though it can't find the OS and has to be restarted several times before it will let me to windows. One of the times I got to the desktop, the background tasks that appear over on the system tray(right side) wouldnt display.

The only thing I have installed in the last few days is VM Ware Player.
Anyone know whats going on?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The CMOS battery may need replacing.

[aidso]

OK this doesnt seem to have gone away for me.
I have since replace the CMOS battery and to no avail.
On the front of my machine there are 3 buttons/lights - one for power, one for the hard drive activity and one for the cd activity.
When I press the power button, the hard disc light doesn't come and it just makes the sound of the case fans spinning. Turning it off and on and few times will eventually trigger the hard disc and then it will boot as normal. I have run some SMART tools and they report no faults and once booted the machine seems to work fine. Know what's up because its getting frustrating!?

Thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Have you tried memtest to see if the RAM is still fine??

I would also ask the question on the Sudhian forums too:
http://www.sudhian.com/forums/index.php/board,4.0.html

[aidso]

Is memtest an application or a feature of the BIOS?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is memtest an application or a feature of the BIOS?

It is an application which tests RAM:

http://www.memtest.org/

BTW,when you first built the PC what voltage did you set the RAM at or did you keep everything on auto settings??

What are the specifications of your PC??

[aidso]

I don't believe I tweaked the memory at all and would have left it all as is. The CPU is an Intel Quad 6600, mobo is stock, 2 Seagate hard discs, 1 pioneer dvd writer and thats about it. The problems have only started recently - before that it was fine.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I don't believe I tweaked the memory at all and would have left it all as is. The CPU is an Intel Quad 6600, mobo is stock, 2 Seagate hard discs, 1 pioneer dvd writer and thats about it. The problems have only started recently - before that it was fine.

What is the graphics card BTW??

It maybe worth reseating the RAM in different slots.

I would still test the system RAM with Memtest though just to make sure the RAM has not become faulty.

Also,I would check your hard disks in case there is a problem too with SeaTools:

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/sup...loads/seatools

I would backup any critical data beforehand.