System Deadish... Please help

[ssteeg]

Hi,

I made my first build in April of 2006. I had no problems and everything worked fine up until April of 2007. One day, I turned off my computer, something I usually never do, and when I went to turn it on the next day, I encountered problems.

The computer would begin to start up and would get to the point where it would begin to load the Operating System (XP). Around this point, after about 20 seconds since I turned it on, it would stop booting and go into System Standby mode. Nothing would be sent to the monitor and the fans would continue to run. I tried going into the BIOS and had similar results, where after about 20 seconds since turning it on, it would go into this System Standby-like mode.

The problem persisted for a few days, until suddenly I was able to completely boot up and had no problems. The computer worked perfectly for another month, at which point I had to turn it off to move. When I went to turn it back on, I had the same type of problems where it would stop booting after about 20 seconds.

Any help or ideas or tips on how I can test certain parts would be really appreciated!.

Btw, here are the components of my build.

CPU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz HT 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103547

Motherboard
DFI Lanparty UT RDX200 CF-DR ATI Socket 939 ATX Motherboard / Audio / PCI Express / Dual Gigabit LAN / S/PDIF / USB 2.0 & Firewire / Serial ATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136165

Memory
Corsair Value Select Dual Channel 2048MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory (2 x 1024MB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145579

Video Card
ATI Radeon X1900 XT / 512MB GDDR3 / PCI Express / Dual DVI / VIVO / Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814195002

Hard Drive
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 SATA NCQ 3.0Gb/s 300GB 16MB Cache (OEM)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148110

Case:
Cooler Master Centurion 5 - Blue ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB, Firewire and Audio Ports
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119047

Power Supply:
Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply 115/230 V TUV, UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103937

THANKS!!!

 

[alcattle]

It has to be heat related or your hard drive, It might need a defrag or re-install, yearly is always good. You could try a live linux disk to bypass hd/window caused problems.

 

[ssteeg]

I've tried disconnecting the hard drive and right now the system won't even boot up..When I push the power button, the fans spin, but nothing happens...

I'm thinking it's either (in order) the Mother board, Power supply or CPU. Is there anyway I can test which of the three it is?

Thanks.
scott

 

[BustedSony]

My secondary computer uses a UT RDX200 motherboard and it behaves exactly the same way. The first turn on nearly always fails, with it going to black just as the O/S starts loading. Holding the power button in for four seconds until the system goes off again, then turning on the system a second time always causes a succesful boot. Others have reported the same problem which seems to be related to how the bios handles resource assignment at boot. Updating the bios may help.

 

[morerevs]

Have you tried replacing the BIOS battery?