my XP crashes randomly on startup. it just stops loading either on the first screen of loading XP (this black one with XP pro logo and the blue counting cursor) or after this screen immediately (between it and the blue welcome screen).. it just stop loading and nothing comes up! but this don't always happen! another problem is with the standby. when I use standby, it sleeps, but it doesn't work again, and I have to reboot the PC. I tried the Windows update concerned with this issue, but it made no difference! I have an FIC vb-601 motherboard, and I think it may be the reason for those problems, coz it makes many problems also! could anyone help?! :)

I don't know but it doens't sound too much like a hardware error to me because at least you get to load the software, the only easy thing I can think of, if it is the hardward is the CPU fan if it is working and not overheating the cpu which locks it. What I do think that happened, is that your software got corrupted somehow that you can't boot or are missing one of your startup files. What I would do in your scenario borrow another hardrive with another an OS and try it out and rule out if it is YOUR software that is causing this problem. And if it is a quick format c: and reloading will fix your problem

Resources for Troubleshooting Startup Problems in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q308041

memory check plzzzzzzzzz

it's me the problem owner again replying on the previous replies to me, and I thank them a lot for answering me.. well.. I don't think that it's a software problem, coz it happens from the first time I installed Windows. and it's not the CPU fan, coz it's working properly, and coz that crash sometimes happens from the first time I open my PC and it's still cold! and it's not a quick format, coz I installed WinXP 2 separate times with 2 separate full formats! finally, I don't think it's a memory problem, coz I have 384MB SD RAM. Any other ideas?? please help me out!