Hello all, I'll try to make this as short as possible. I have XP Home installed but one day I switched my PC on and it took about 5 minutes to boot. This isn't normal for my PC because it's normaly pretty quick. I have SP2, all my drivers are up to date including my Graphics card, bios and what not. I have scanned my PC with Spybot, adware, spyblaster, Noton anivirus, full scandisk and appart from the usuall bit's that get found and deleted, there was nothing out of the ordinary. When the machine is booting, the HD light seems to be flickering so fast as if there is lots more HD activity than usual and sometimes when windows finally loads and it plays it's little start-up jingle, the sound stutters like a broken CD. The only thing that has changed is I installed HL2 a couple of weeks back. At first I thought it could be that so I un-installed it to no avail. The only thing left for me to do was to 'Format C:\' and re-install XP which I did and, yes, you've guessed it, still taking ages to boot. The only things I can think of which may or may not have anything to do with it is A:- My power supply, that came with the cheap case I bought, although it's a 400wat PSU there is only 12A on the 12volt rail and I know my GPU is a bit of a power sucker or B: I have a bad memory module. Any advice would be greatly apreciated. Thanks in advance GaryM Chaintech 9PJL Appogee 800FSB P4 2.8 HT Sparkle Platinum 6800GT 256MB 4*256 KINGSTONE PC3200 dual 40 gig IDE 120 Gig sata DC10+ Video card

Hi GaryM When I was reading through your post I was thinking to myself 'sounds like memory' I see you suspect the same. You have already proven xp isn't the issue as you have formatted and reinstalled. I don’t think your PSU is the problem either, if it was you would have always suffered not encountered recent problems. Try some memory testing software http://www.memtest86.com/ before you do that systematically test your memory by removing all the sticks bar one then try them one by one individually. Then go from there, psu, graphics card etc... hmm, upgrades..

Thanks Jacques Schmitt, Memory sounds like a good place to start. I do have two sticks of 512 PC2700 lying around somewhere so I might just stick that in and see what happens. Cheers GaryM Chaintech 9PJL Appogee 800FSB P4 2.8 HT Sparkle Platinum 6800GT 256MB 4*256 KINGSTONE PC3200 dual 40 gig IDE 120 Gig sata DC10+ Video card

Hi all again. Just to update. I ran the memtest86 and no errors showed up. I didn't get time to try my PC2700 sticks but I suppose what I need to know is can I take it that because memtest86 didn't find anything it's not actually my memory thats the issue here. Thing is, if I change my PC3200 for PC2700 I will be dragging my system back down to 333mhz and the whole thing is going to run slower anyway. I don't know what to do. I've built many a PC in the past and solved most problems but this one has me stumped. My graphics card is just over a month old so that's in the back of my mind because when you spend £300 on a GPU you need to know if it's faulty before the warrenty expirers but I'm sure it's nothing to do with that. GaryM Chaintech 9PJL Appogee 800FSB P4 2.8 HT Sparkle Platinum 6800GT 256MB 4*256 KINGSTONE PC3200 dual 40 gig IDE 120 Gig sata DC10+ Video card

GaryM, might be worth re-seating the modules and dusting slots with compressed air. Otherwise I'm struggling, do you have any other symptoms blue screens pc shutting down automatically? If so may be worth thinking about the other components causing the slow running - hows your processor? I'm not sure about kingston guarantee but if you buy branded again and dont have any issues with them consider crucial for the peace of mind of their lifetime guarantee. hmm, upgrades..

Hi Jacques Schmitt I have tried re-seating the ram and there was no difference there. Tonight I will give the PC2700 a go and see what that does. I must admit, the problem does seem to indicate dodgy ram but you never know. I can play HL2 with settings on 'nearly high' If I put them on high I get major stuttering. My CPU never goes past 55c on full load so it's not over heating I know that much. For what it's worth I'm thinking of upgrading to a 3.0 P4 but I'm not sure the difference would be work the hassle. I'll keep trying. I'm sure I'll get to the bottom of it in the end. I'll let you know. Thanks for all your sugestions Jacques Schmitt GaryM Chaintech 9PJL Appogee 800FSB P4 2.8 HT Sparkle Platinum 6800GT 256MB 4*256 KINGSTONE PC3200 dual 40 gig IDE 120 Gig sata DC10+ Video card