Blue Screen When booting up (Memory Dump?)

[deeloughran]

I installed a new mobo (Asus p4p800SE), new graphics card (Winfast A400), new memory (Geil Ultra X) and a TV card, so when i turn the computer on everything seems to load alright, first up comes the motherboard page, then the graphics card page, then windows xp page where it's loading, then a big blue screen comes up with writing which i can't make out as it goes off VERY quickly (think it could be a physical memory dump) then the computer restarts, this cycle is continually repeated.

I have tried:
Replacing the ram, graphics card with old ones.
Taking out the TV card
Checked all the Bios settings from the manual and changed the chipset settings to whatever graphics card i have in (128mb for new card or 256mb for old card)

Has anyone else anything else i could try as i don't know what is the matter?

[scrandman]

It sounds very much like you are trying to use a hard drive with Windows already installed on it from your previous PC. In most cases this will not work.

There are really just two things you can do:

1. A fresh installation of Windows.
2. A repair installation of Windows.

You might want to try the repair install first, as it will retain all of your documents, programs, etc. A repair install is run off the Windows CD - just carefully read the options (I can't remember exactly how you do it though, as it has been a while).

These are not the "repair install": The recovery console (this is something completely different). Installing a second installation of Windows onto the same partition.

Hope this helps.

[deeloughran]

Thanks mate, got another problem though...went into the settings and the floppy and two cd drives are not being recognised, i have checked the cables and all seems right so don't really know why it's not recognising it...anyone any ideas?

[scrandman]

Make sure you've got the jumpers set correctly. The one at the end of the cable should be set to master. The one in the middle, slave (opticals).

Floppy can be missed altogether if you put the ribbon connector on 180 degrees out.

[BEANFro Elite]

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember GeIL memory hates many Asus mobos :/ so just to make sure, try using different sticks of RAM by another manufacturer if you can.

[scrandman]

If the opticals & floppy are not being recognised in BIOS, then it is unlikely that memory is the problem (although it might be worthwhile giving memtest a run once you've got the floppy recognised).

Memtest can be got at: http://www.memtest.org/

Anyway, common reasons for floppy not being recognised: The ribbon connector can be fitted the wrong way round - try reversing it 180 degrees on the floppy itself. The ribbon cable should have a red line on one side. Normally that aligns with the lowest end of the port on the motherboard.

Opticals - As suggested above, check the jumpers are correctly set: You need to use jumpers for both the "Master" and the "Slave" drive. The master connects to the end of the ribbon, the slave to the middle connector. Make sure that the IDE channel that the opticals are connected to is not disabled in BIOS.

It might be worthwhile trying to get it running with only a single optical drive, until you've sorted your other issues.

Hope the above helps. If everything is connected as it should be and it still does not work, please post back.

[deeloughran]

Well have got the CD-Drives in correct order and is recognised when into settings but still the computer restarts after physical memory dump, i have the microsoft xp cd in, should it not come up before the microsoft loading page? (After the loading page the blue screen comes up with writing and restarts)

Edit: Looked at Microsoft XP CD and it is cracked, tried it in another PC and still not working, so found the problem! Does anyone know any website to download it from or can someone be so kind to send me it? I have a key for it here but just need the stuff to burn onto another CD, thanks!

[scrandman]

That sounds like it could be memory related. Try running memtest (link above).

You need a blank floppy to run it. If you still haven't got the floppy working, you can also burn it to a CD, and boot into memtest that way.

[deeloughran]

Well this computer wouldn't format my floppy (don't know why) so stuck it on a CD and it didn't load up, just restarted as normal, will hopefully get the XP CD tomorrow and see what happens, hopefully it will sort everything

I switched the Ram with my old set and still didn't work so don't think it's the problem though...