Is this RAM or HD?

[Merlin4458]

Ok, i have formatted like 20 times in the last few weeks, windows jsut seems unstable, and the most annoying problem is the sitting on windows loading bar on boot for like 4-5 mins... Im not quite sure what to do now, its still doing this even on this format.

I downlaoded memtest and put it on CD, i think but when i restart it seems to boot and loadsa random number churn down the screen....Is that right?

Another thing is when i boot sometimes, i get a long beep and no screenposts, and im pretty sure thats ram... but iduno, it doesnt happen all the time

Is there anything else ican do too eliminated hardware and find the cause

REALLY! could do wit hsome help here lads, ive never been so stuck

Thnks

[ultim8um]

Have you stripped the RAM out and reseated it? First thing I would try if you have any doubts about it... The memtest you describe sounds vaguely correct in that there should be a series of tests often with repeating patterns of numbers and progress bars (top right of the screen probably). If it is RAM it could be you need to change your timings (relax them a bit).

[Merlin4458]

hmm im just getting number going down the botton left, left it running for 4/5 mins and there was no chance, i was quite certain if i used the right memtest, or burnt it properly to cd, im a bit poo at that kidna thing.

I have reseated the ram more times than i havent! I reseated everything in my whole pc.

[Bickle79]

Do you have/could you get any known workable and compatible memory to bung in to your machine to see if that makes any difference?

[Clunk]

did you grab an iso image of memtest? if so how did you burn it?

when you have burnt it properly, you need to go into your bios and set the cd as first boot device, save and exit...make sure the cd is in the drive and it should boot from the cd and load up memtest. once its loaded you can select various tests to do.

if you run memtest and get errors, take out one of your sticks of ram and run it again. if you still get errors, put that stick back in and take the other out and run it again...if you still get errors, swap the sticks round and then try them one at a time again. see if that helps

[Dingo]

You haven't told us whether you are using one or two sticks of ram and posting your setup might help. Also have you made any hardware\software changes recently that may have caused the problem?.

If using one stick of ram then I would agree with Bickle79 but if two then try putting in only one stick at a time and see if it boots....that way you might eliminate\discover if it's just one of the sticks of ram that is causing the problem.

[scrandman]

Is the screen going blue before all the numbers churm down the screen? If so, those are errors in memtest. If the screen is black, you haven't burned the CD properly.

[Merlin4458]

1: i dont think i have burnt them to cd correctly, so if someone wouldnt mind helping me on MSN it would be great
2: My specs are in "My System" and its 2 sticks
3: This is another clean format so no changes have been done
4: No hardware changes

[Dingo]

So have you tried one stick at a time yet?

[scrandman]

1: i dont think i have burnt them to cd correctly, so if someone wouldnt mind helping me on MSN it would be great

I'd love to help, but a couple of problems: 1. I'm not on MSN & 2. I've never burned memtest to a CD.

If you have a floppy disk on the PC and a blank floppy, you can do it that way - very straightforward:

1. Download floppy installer from www.memtest.org.
2. Insert floppy into drive
3. Run the installer
4. Re-boot, making sure that "floppy" is set to the first boot device in BIOS.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Once the floppy has memtest installed, you will not be able to read it in Windows - in fact, Windows will want to re-format the drive. This is perfectly normal, simply because the memtest boot disk is similar to Linux as opposed to MS DOS.

Hope this helps. If not, there is another way using a USB pen drive that I've used, but it is a bit more complicated (and still needs a floppy with a bootable OS such as DOS on it).

[Clunk]

have you got nero for burning?

[Merlin4458]

Update:
> I Tried brand new corsair ram in my PC and is had the same problem
> I was recommended to unplug all optical drives and try so did that, but the problem still occured

i dont have a floppy,(but its not the ram now anyway)

What else could this be?

It just sits on window loading bar for like 4/5 mins before going into windows.. I cleared the cmos for than 20 times...

[Clunk]

has it got 2 lan connections on the motherboard? try disabling them one at a time, i had a right ballache with mine when i first built it and i sorted it by disabling one of them in the bios....it was doing exactly as you describe...long boot up.

[BUFF]

did you install the nVidia SW IDE drivers?
Try rolling back to MS if you did.

[Merlin4458]

YEs buff i did install IDE drivers, i always dom i just click next, prob sound like a noob now... What are they tbh...What you mean rolling back to MS

Ive also run every test i can think of in terms of hd,ram, cpu so im thinking its the mobo. Could it be bios if not ill have to spend a week sending my mobo back to tekheads, if the even replace it..

[Merlin4458]

yeh i did instal SW IDE drivers, whatever they are...... what are they?> and what u mean rolling bk to MS, whats that, sorry for being a nab