Hi there. Recently my PC has started freezing before it loads Windows XP, but not every time. When it starts properly the fan comes on for about 2 seconds and then stops and then XP loads. When it freezes, the fan keeps running and it freezes on the first screen showing the name of the manufacturer and the prompts like "Press ESC to switch screen" etc. I don't get the option to go to SAFE MODE - what button do I push for that, will that help?

To get to Windows XP safe mode you hit the F8 Key. But if you are only seeing the manufacturer screen the F8 will not help, and this means that it is not a Windows XP problem it is a BIOs problem. My only suggestion is to maybe go into the BIOs settings and load the default settings. The final option that I can think of would be to flash the BIOs, but this can be VERY DANGEROUS, because if ANYTHING goes wrong your motherboard is toast. Jesse My Maxed Out Pentium 4! Dell Dimension 4600 Pentium 4 HT EE @ 3.2GHz 4GB DDR Ram 1.0 TB SATA II Drive Windows Vista Ultimate NVIDIA 7600 GT Computing.net Member since 2003!

The cause for this can be many things. What I'd do first off is go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer and click on "System" in the left pane. In the right pane, look for any warnings or errors. That may lead us somewhere. If there are no unusual warnings or errors, I'd suggest running a hard drive diagnostic program. Have a look here. If you run these tests and no problems appear, if you can, remove all PCI/USB cards for the time being and see if the freeze-ups go away. Does it freeze up at all in Windows? WinSimple Software

Thanks Jesse and Rayburn. I restored the default BIOS settings and have had five successful startups so far. Let's hope it was just that. Thanks again guys!