PC went belly up

[Street Gerbil]

Hello boys and girls. It is a sad weekend indeed because my computer bought itself a farm, glued its flippers together, crossed the rainbow bridge, and refuses to boot up ever since. It starts a boot sequence, begins loading XP, switches to the graphic mode, displayes the bootstrapping screen for a couple of seconds, and invariably goes into hard reset.
I have narrowed it down to either memory or motherboard (definitely not the CPU or software/HD problem), however not sure how to proceed from there. No new hardware. Not overclocked. Latest bios. Boots from floppy, but memtest86 bootdisk fails to initialize. Swapping memory modules yields unconclusive results (XP installation on a new HD seem to fail in a different place).
Any ideas?

[xwhatsit]

For a minute there I was going to give you a spiel about clearing all the dust and shit out of your computer, as hard resets occurring under heavy CPU usage are often caused by overheating. Dust and all that adds to that.

However once I read your post properly it sounds like you're no newb, and it's occurring at boot -- you won't overheat that quickly unless you left the heatsink off the CPU or something daft.

Memtest86 fails at which point? Does it get far enough to bring up the fullscreen text-mode view? This may give a clue to whether it's a motherboard or memory issue. I would suggest that if it gets far enough to bring up the fullscreen `main view' of Memtest86, by that stage the CPU has already allocated all the program memory for Memtest86, so it's unlikely that RAM failure is causing a hard reset at this point. If, however, the reset is happening before Memtest86 has even had a chance to bring up the interface, then both motherboard and memory options are still open.

Commiserations, man -- x86 architecture licks hairy nuts, we have to learn to live with this kind of shit unfortunately.

[Gremlin]

Swapping memory modules yields unconclusive results (XP installation on a new HD seem to fail in a different place).
Any ideas?

What exactly did you swap? new ram in, or their slots? Best thing to do is perhaps borrow some identical ram, that you know is working? Start with 1 slot used, and just see if it boots...

ie, troubleshoot the ram... you can't really troubleshoot the mobo, if its stuffed, unless your pc is almost new, you basically have zero chance of saving the installation of the pc (data etc (you say hdd is fine) can all be saved), unless you have some nice software.

If its the mobo, and you can't source another identical mobo, you'll just have to do a clean install on another hdd.

[CM2005]

Nerd Alert. I have no idea what that means, but whatever you do... Don't buy a Mac.

[klyong82]

Have a look at your motherboard's capacitors to see if there are leaking. Sounds like it. If it is leaking you need a new motherboard.

[Street Gerbil]

Memtest86 fails at which point? Does it get far enough to bring up the fullscreen text-mode view? This may give a clue to whether it's a motherboard or memory issue.

It dumps registers and freezes up right at the start.
However, it perfectly boots command processor from the XP boot floppy - indicating that the system is not completely fried.

What exactly did you swap? new ram in, or their slots?

Switched their places in the bank.

Best thing to do is perhaps borrow some identical ram, that you know is working? Start with 1 slot used, and just see if it boots...

No can do - dual channel memory :-(
I bought 2 new DIMMs from trademe but the seller has yet to respond.

If its the mobo, and you can't source another identical mobo, you'll just have to do a clean install on another hdd.

Tried that. Setup on a new HDD fails with the PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_REGION blue screen.

Nerd Alert. I have no idea what that means, but whatever you do... Don't buy a Mac.

Like they say... In Soviet Russia.... Mac buys you.

Have a look at your motherboard's capacitors to see if there are leaking. Sounds like it. If it is leaking you need a new motherboard.

No obvious leakage. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Delphinus]

No can do - dual channel memory :-(
I bought 2 new DIMMs from trademe but the seller has yet to respond.

Just take 1 DIMM out at a time. Dual channel awesomeness just wont work, the memory will work fine though.

[Macktheknife]

I had a very similar problem some time ago, it turned out to be the video card had a strange fault, swapped it out and had no issues. Even the techies were sure it was a RAM issue. Do you get a clean POST test?

[Street Gerbil]

I had a very similar problem some time ago, it turned out to be the video card had a strange fault, swapped it out and had no issues. Even the techies were sure it was a RAM issue. Do you get a clean POST test?

Yep. Squeaky clean. Like I said, I can even boot from a floppy.
But thanks for the suggestion!
I'll try that when I'll get home. Who knows...

[klyong82]

"PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_REGION blue screen."

That blue screen error is to do with ram.

[scracha]

installation of the pc (data etc (you say hdd is fine) can all be saved), unless you have some nice software.

If its the mobo, and you can't source another identical mobo, you'll just have to do a clean install on another hdd.

No offense Gremlin but that's nonsense.

[xwhatsit]

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_REGION blue screen.

Well, if that error message is accurate (i.e., Microsoft wrote an error message that means what it says), then you almost certainly have a memory issue. With a bit of luck new RAM sticks will fix it; somehow I can't see a memory controller on the motherboard failing so easily yet other things remaining isolated.

The memtest86 behaviour corroborates this.

Lets hope that it's the cheap and easy fix it looks like -- new RAM.

[Sanx]

Well, if that error message is accurate (i.e., Microsoft wrote an error message that means what it says), then you almost certainly have a memory issue. With a bit of luck new RAM sticks will fix it; somehow I can't see a memory controller on the motherboard failing so easily yet other things remaining isolated.

The memtest86 behaviour corroborates this.

Lets hope that it's the cheap and easy fix it looks like -- new RAM.

STOP 0x00000050 PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

One of the more common blue screens of death. More info on it here. if you can't run Memtest, the chances are it is RAM related, but it could possibly be the video card (is it integrated or discrete?) or even the CPU (Level 2 cache).

Drop me a PM, Mr Gerbil - last time I checked I've about 3Gb of DDR and DDR2 RAM lying about the place doing sod all, if you need some for testing purposes.

[Gremlin]

No offense Gremlin but that's nonsense.

you're welcome to provide some details. If you image the hdd, and try to dump it onto different hardware/replace hardware without editing install of pc, there is a high chance of OS BSOD'ing.

For me, its often more a case of labour cost to potentially get it working, with an unknown success rate/length of operation, against doing it right from the start. You can do any manner of tricky things, but success can vary, and generally, isn't worth it, unless you're happy to burn away the time finding the exact fault.

Gerbil, you can run one stick of ram, it just doesn't run as fast, but it allows you to accurately identify if any one stick of ram is faulty.

[scracha]

you're welcome to provide some details. If you image the hdd, and try to dump it onto different hardware/replace hardware without editing install of pc, there is a high chance of OS BSOD'ing.

Sorta agree...about 20% chance of going totally tits up. Normally you can just fire it into safe mode, erase most of the drivers then reboot and let it pick them up. Otherwise do a recovery installation. Worth the risk as saves pissing about reinstalling apps and transferring user files/settings.