Trying to install XP Pro on an oldish custom build PC with formatted hard drive. The install gets to various points and then the monitor powers off and displays "power saving" - some times it will get to formatting the drive, others copying the install files. Any ideas what might be up? Thanks, Ed Ludlow

Just a guess -- Turn off the monitor, then turn back on. Monitor is not needed for the computer to work. MONITOR PROBLEMS: A yellow,or orange, monitor indicator light indicates no signal is getting to the monitor from the video card. Could be the card is not sending a signal, or problem with the cable or connectors. Card may not be seated properly.

"the monitor powers off and displays "power saving" I doubt that the monitor is 'powering off', since it is displaying 'Power saving'. It sounds like you have an intermittent hardware problem. I would suggest starting with a memory test. http://memtest86.com/ There is a version to create a bootable floppy diskette and/or an ISO for creating a CD.

The only time I had a monitor go into standby mode and stay that way while running Windows Setup, it was because of a setting in the mboard's bios Setup. A setting there was set to have the monitor go into standby mode after xx minutes. It wasn't my system and I didn't notice that until I attempted to re-load Windows. Apparently, when Windows is already loaded on a hard drive and you boot from it, Windows over-rides the bios setting, but when the hard drive doesn't yet have Windows on it, the bios setting kicks in - in my case, it was after 5 minutes or similar. ..... If you are NOT getting any errors reading files from the Windows CD, you probably don't have a ram problem. You should not get ANY errors reading the files from the Windows CD when you boot from the CD. If you do - - make sure the CD is clean and free of major scratches - try using a laser lens cleaning cd - there may be something wrong with your data cable. It is common to un-intentionally damage IDE data cables, especially while removing them - the 80 wire ones are more likely to be damaged. What usually happens is the cable is ripped at either edge and the wires there are either damaged or severed, often right at a connector or under it's cable clamp there, where it's hard to see - if a wire is severed but it's ends are touching, the connection is intermittant, rather than being reliable. Another common thing is for the data cable to be separated from the connector contacts a bit after you have removed a cable - there should be no gap between the data cable and the connector - if there is press the cable against the connector to eliminate the gap. 80 wire data cables are also easily damaged at either edge if the cable is sharply creased at a fold in the cable. Try another data cable if in doubt. - Setup is very sensitive to errors reading the ram. You may have a ram problem. A common thing that can happen with ram, even ram that worked fine previously, is the ram has, or has developed, a poor connection in it's slot(s). This usually happens a long time after the ram was installed, but it can happen with new ram, or after moving the computer case from one place to another, and I've had even new modules that needed to have their contacts cleaned. See response 2 in this - try cleaning the contacts on the ram modules, and making sure the modules are properly seated: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... You could try the same thing for any cards in slots. ...... Ram that works in another mboard , or any ram you buy or have lying around, may not work properly, or sometimes, not at all - even if it physically fits and is the right overall type (e.g. SDram, DDR, DDR2, etc.; PCxxxx, xxx mhz) for your mboard. In the worst cases of incompatibilty your mboard WILL NOT BOOT with it installed, and the mboard may not even beep - the ram has to be compatible with the mboard and it's chipset. See response 5 in this for some info about ram compatibilty, and some places where you can find out what will work in your mboard for sure: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... Correction to that: Mushkin www.mushkin.com Once you know which module ID strings work in your mboard, you can get them from anywhere you like that has ram with those ID strings. If you have brand name ram, it is usually easy to look up whether it's ID string is in a list of compatible modules found by using your mboard or brand name system model number. If the ram is generic, that may be difficult or impossible. If you do a ram test, do that AFTER having tried cleaning the contacts and making sure the ram is seated properly - otherwise any errors found may be FALSE. If the ram is incompatible with the chipset, it will likely FAIL a ram test - that is NOT a true indication of the ram being faulty - there is probably nothing wrong with it, and it will pass the test if installed in a mboard it is compatible with. If you want to try a memory diagnostic utility that takes a lot less time to run a full pass than memtest86 does, this one is pretty good - Microsoft's Windows Memory Diagnostic: http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag... It can be toggled to do a standard or a more comprehensive set of tests - use the default 6 test one first - if it passes one pass of that, use the latter one. A few of the tests in the latter set are intentionally slower. - this has only happened when one particular ram module was installed, a PC133 256mb, on an Asus A7V-133 mboard. In that case it and another PC133 128mb ram module passed memory tests individually and when both were installed, but I still got errors reading files from the Windows CD when both modules were installed - yet I didn't when only the 256mb module was installed, or if two PC133 128 mb modules were installed. In that case, when the 256mb and 128mb modules were installed, I didn't getting any errors reading files from the CD during the initial loading of the files from the CD, or after that during partitioning and formatting the drive by XP - it was only after that, when the actual Setup was trying to run, that I got lots of errors.