[taidan]

What better place than SB to ask for computer help.

My trusty box was hit with a major power surge on my last night home before moving to Baltimore. I replaced the power supply sometime later and it seemed to alleviate one problem, that being that it will not crash when actually working.

I've got another issue though, one that won't go away and occurs at a random level of severity, in that it either will not show up for weeks or will put my machine on hold for days.

Essentially it does one of several things:

1) detects the CPU and won't continue in the boot process.

2) attempts a memory test and doensn't finish

3) loads up fine and runs perfectly.

I wanted to pinpoint the issue as being with the Front Side Bus being screwy, thus necessitating the need for a new motherbaord. However it makes me wonder if my RAM is in bad shape, and considering the only other memory I've tested with is from my roomate's busted old PC, I could be testing with four shitty sticks and not know it. I can't think of any other component that would be causing the error, since I've also tested it with multiple video cards. Something on the MOBO has to be crapping out on me.

[Corinth]

Sounds like it's definitely a motherboard issue if you've tried another stick of RAM, although if you could try with a third, reliable DIM that would give you your answer.

[Panoptic]

The POST memory test isn't a thorough one. Try this one.

Also, try unplugging it and popping the battery out of the motherboard for a bit, then plugging it back in and turning it on (don't have to put the battery back in for now), and see if that changes anything.

But yeah, unfortunately it does sound like a motherboard issue.