I have an 8 year-old locally assembled computer, described below, which failed seemingly with a motherboard problem. It was brought back to life, but only partially, by a local technician, who did not however succeed in making it usable.

Running Windows XP Pro, I can use Safe mode and access every file and programme, but Normal mode fails to load. The process stops, without any error message. The blue dots of the splash screen are displayed for a few cycles and then the screen goes black.

In an XP forum I was told that either the PSU or the mother board is inadequate and I was advised to throw it away. There is no hope of getting a replacement motherboard, and I do not have a PSU lying around with which to experiment. However, I would like to reclaim it for limited use (e.g. checking my email if my main computer should fail) if possible. I don't know enough about computer hardware to determine whether a "weak" mother board could explain the above symptoms, and if some expert can defintely pin it down to the PSU, I would be glad to buy a replacement.

Specs (found with Belarc advisor):

Processor: 1.1 GHz Pentium III

Main Board: i810-ITE, bus clock 100 MHz

BIOS: Award Software 6.00 PD 03/01/2001

Memory: only 128 MB currently (I had 256MB but one stick has failed). The remaining stick has been tested thorougly with MEMTEST, and as far as I know XP should at least load with 128 MB.

I should mention that I had two hard disks with XP Pro that used to work on this computer. On one of them I tried a "Repair Install" on the supposedly repaired computer when XP failed to load in Normal mode. All the files loaded but the process stalled at the point where the computer needs to be restarted to complete the Setup. Safe mode works fine on the other hard disk.

I will be grateful if some expert could give me an opinion.

raminder singh

If you can boot and load Windows, even Safe Mode, your PSU is probably OK.

One of the things that Safe Mode does is to load a minimal set of drivers. You may simply not have enough memory.

One thing you can try is to install Linux to test your hardware. It has lower hardware requirements. If you can install Linux, that suggests that your hardware is OK except for a shortage of memory.

Thank you for your prompt response.

I am encouraged to learn that a shortage of Ram could explain my problem. I must have been mistaken in thinking that XP could run (though slowly) on 128 MB of memory. And since you did not mention the mother board, I assume that I need not worry about a "weakness" in the board. Finding additional Ram will not be hard, I hope, even for this old machine.

I had tried to install Linux (Mandriva 2007) after failing to get XP to work, but the set up had failed at the point where the partitions are created/formatted.

I will try to get hold of another Ram stick, as you suggest and give it a try.

Thank you again for your help.

raminder singh

You are welcome - especially if I have been helpful.

I wonder if you will get to read this, but I do need more help.

I was able to get another 128 MB memory card in the junk market, and luckily it worked. BIOS sees the full 256 MB memory, and I ran an Memtest for 3 hours and got no errors. But my problem remains!

I decided to clean install XP on a freshly formatted partition to see if anything changed. Setup proceeded smoothy until the end, where the computer has to be re-booted to complete the setup. That rebooting never completes. As always, the XP screen with its progressing dots comes up, cycles a few times and then a black screen. On the other hard disk, Safe mode still works (and everything loads faster with the additional memory) but normal mode boot follows the above pattern and never completes.

Can there be fault in the mother board which could explain all this?

I will be thankful for further advice.

raminder singh