this is where i'm looking now, ive found out if i boot the pc and the desktop comes on ok and i leave it for 10mins without ragin it through web pages or other stressfull operations it seems to be ok and i have no problems?
its when i boot get to desktop go on net and flick web pages rapidly straight away :?

Defo try the single ram swap out. If the psu was going a bit belly up you can normally tell that with how hot it is. Touch the case. Fan issues. But as you said it has beenon for a while and runs ok, it does sound like a Mem issue. Have you tried it in SAFE MODE when it first goes pear shaped on pwering up?

i.e. When the pc has been off for a while and it won't properly boot, what happens if you get it into SAFE Mode.

To do this, once the BIOS pc info screen has gone of,f keep tapping the F8 key. This should bring up a little menu, Choose SAFE MODE. and then press Enter. This should then let you choose which O S to use.( If ur on XP it should show you that) When Enter is pressed you should see a list of things that are being loaded up which you normally don't see.

If you can get into it no problem with safe mode then it could possibly be an issue with a driver that is loading up into Memory when in normal mode.

Try doing a Defrag and Diskcheck on the drive when in Safe mode, CAN TAKE A WHILE.

Ian

Sorry should read ALL the pages in the post first! D'oh

ABIT are a good manuf' of M/B's

:roll:

ive got 2 sticks of 512DDR300 i'll remove one then the other and see if that sorts it.cheers, daz

If money is of more concern than time, get something like http://tinyurl.com/rnv4e (99p+$4.00 p&p on fleabay) and try it, if it works then you know its the mobo. In fact, if it works, problem solved :P Theres plenty of socket 462 mobo's on there for under £5. But before doing that, you'd better confirm what socket your processor is, people have already suggested socket 462 and socket A mobo's, and theyre not interchangable, i'd guess your Athlon XP is socket 462, but it's not a given. :P. Run something like HWInfo32, find out what you need, and order something close to the cheapest compatable you can find. Doesnt sound to me like you spend hours tweaking BIOS settings and overclocking for the best performance, so dont worry about getting a good motherboard. If they crashed, they wouldnt be in production, you pay extra for features not reliability.

but agreed, im sure someone suggested removing one stick of memory about 4 pages back, i assumed you'd done that....Shouldnt be the problem if memtest86 is happy with it though.

it is a socket A mobo with a 2.8xp cpu the board is a jetway v400dbl if thats any use to you?
thanks

i'll prob get that board of ebay and try it, its a quick fix init.

hey all! thanks for all of your advice, it was in the end the motherboard!
i struggled on with the pc for a few months until it no longer evan booted got a new m/board one of those nforce2 chipset thingys and its fine now, again thanks all! :D

out of daft are any of the mother board capacitors domed on the top as this is a good sign your board was on the way out

i did check this but i couldnt see anything. fine now tho.