Constant restarting, and won't go beyond the first screen

[darthpepito]

hey there, my computer won't work and i don't know what else to do. about a week ago i decided it was time to do a reformat and clean install of xp, because there were lots of restarts and random crashes, including a bsod saying "kmode exception not handled". now ive reformatted, but most of the time when i try to install windows, it will freeze, or just plain restart. and when it restarts most of the time it will start to load, go to the first screen that says the mobo manufacturer and "press del to enter bios, tab for post". then it will restart, and keep doing it until i simply have to power off. sometimes it will just go to that screen and freeze.

i was told it might be that some sort of virus affected my bios, and screwed it up to the point that i couldnt do anything, but im not sure. something that worried me, made me think it might be either bios or memory, is that, upon one startup, i went to the bios, and it showed the memory timings as being 4-4-4, when it should be 5-5-5.

i looks to me like some sort of memory problem, but i want your opinions before i do anything rash.

 

[CobaltViper]

You should be able to set it to 5-5-5 no problem. If it doesn't boot even then, try resetting your CMOS by removing the battery on your mobo for about 1 minute.

 

[darthpepito]

i did set it from auto to manual, then set it to the proper 5-5-5 timing. also, i was getting the occasional cmos checksum error, so i replaced the battery.

 

[Tmagic650]

Remove all unnecessary components like USB adapters, network cards and use only one stick of memory and try reinstalling XP that way. After XP is fully installed you can add everything you removed for the installation

 

[darthpepito]

i removed one stick of ram (out of 2), and the only other parts attached was 1 hdd, one optical, and the video card. it started to load up the windows setup, then bsod'ed and said that my bios wasnt acpi compatible, which isnt right (to my knowledge at least).

 

[Boogityboo04]

It sounds like your motherboard has gone wonky, which is kind of weird. Have you tried running memtest off a CD (it can be downloaded from various sources) or borrowing some RAM from another computer to make sure it isn't your memory? It might even be a failing PSU delivering low voltages that are causing the errors. I was having the same sort of problems recently and replacing the PSU fixed a whole host of isssues that I thought were unrelated.

 

[Tmagic650]

... or maybe a bios update is needed

 

[darthpepito]

yeah, im thinking its the psu now, since it wont even turn on. the lights on the mobo that indicate power is there dont come on. i dont have a volt meter to test it, but that would explain a lot of my recent problems.