Trouble booting up and bsod

[Fufanu]

Hi i was wondering if someone could help point me in the right direction to fix the problem with my machine.

It starts when i press the power button if the internal speaker doesn't beep then the monitor doesn't turn on (which makes me think something isn't powering up) then it can take quite some time with me turning it off and on again until the speaker beeps and the monitor turns on. sometimes turning the PSU off and holding the power button down for 10 seconds can fix it but this might just be coincidence.

Then once the monitor turns on more errors turn up. first sometimes the system will lock up on the colored motherboard screen (splash screen?) with lots of little black dots over it. then during boot up the system will lock up, reset, give disk check error, corrupt sector messages. most of time if it gets further i get the windows start up repair or the start windows normally options.

if it gets to the windows is starting screen or into windows itself it can lock up forcing me to manually restart, bsod, reset itself or what i can only describe as what looks like a full screen glitch, the image on the monitor at the time will just be lines and the current sound/music will just loop quickly until it crashes. this last one happens during video, on the desktop or when attempting to play any game. after the machine has crashed/reset then it sometimes ends up back at the first problem and the whole thing starts again.

Now the annoying thing is sometimes after anything up to half an hour or an hour of all the above mentioned errors the system will boot up fine and i can use it to its fullest without any crashes until i shut it down.

Im thinking its a hardware issue, but not sure which part. im not overclocked on anything and my system temps seem fine.

Any advice or information would help and i hope its been explained it so it makes sense.

my system specs.

Motherboard: Asus M3N78-AM (bios flashed to take the CPU Below)
CPU: AMD Athlon II x3 450 @ 3.20 Ghz
GPU: HD 4850 512 MB
RAM: 4 GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 2x 2 GB
PSU: Hiper Type M 530w psu.
Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit (the problem was the same back when i had 32 bit so a fresh install didn't help)

Thanks

Kyle.

[Thorsson]

Definitely a hardware issue I'd say. Have you changed anything just before the problem started?

Your first port of call should be to check that all cables are firmly connected, and not loose. Secondly you should check your RAM; I'm assuming here that you will be able to boot OK sometimes. First make sure that both DIMMs are firmly seated. If they are then take one out and run memtest to see if your RAM is OK. Then replace the first DIMM with the second and test that one. If you get errors from both try the other slot.

If the memory checks out OK then your best bet is to swap out components, but that means having compatible kit. The easiest to check is the HD4850 - that will work in any PCI-e desktop, or any old video card can be used, even a PCI (but put it in a PCI slot!). Your PSU is also capable of being swapped, but given the multiplicity of connections it's rather more of a pain. Do you have an old PSU that you could use? As you won't be using it to run Prime or 3D games it's unlikely to be a problem if the power rating is on the low side.