Hi : I am a new user and not very "tech heavy". I have a brand new ( no name ) computer with these new parts :- XP Home SP2 all with current updates Motherboard - ASUS P5P800 socket 775 2 GB main mem BIOS : American Megatrend 1010.002 23 May 05 Monitor : LG Flatron L1750S 17" LCD Audio : SoundBlaster Live 24 bit Power Supply : Coolergiant 430W EG435P-SFMA VIDEO : NVDIA GeForce FX 5959 Ultra with 256 MB with drivers @ 6.14.10.7801 Norton 2005 Internet Security updated Microsoft Spyware running Highspeed Cable connected Internet. PROBLEM :- When I power on :- I get various results : the Windows screen and the whole system freezes during the time that the windows box ( blue bar moving left to right ) displays Hardware drive light on solid OR the cursor freezes after the windows screen comes up but not always at the same time or the cursor disappears and won't come back. I have to press & hold the power-on button for a few seconds to get the computer to power-up again. ------------------------- Sometimes I have to try to bootup 3 or 4 times befroe it finally comes up. Sometimes ( rarely ) everything boots up just fine. It almost always boots-up fine on a "restart" software re-boot. Once Windows is up and running everything is fine / OK, no problems. Can anyone tell me what to do to enable me to boot-up succesfully ? Thank you. Doug.

Is your Hard disk brand new or an old one? I considered Overheat issue from inadequate Cooling, Poor RAM , Bad Power supply etc for the random boot problems; but since it works "normally" once the PC boots to Windows, I am wondering if this might be a hard disk drive problem. I would check all the Cooling System, run Memtest86, and if I have the Hard disk Drive diagnostic tool from the manufacturer test HDD health. Hope others will post their ideas too. M