Vista 64 machine randomly not starting Windows

[MajorAmby]

I have had this problem with my computer (built earlier this year), where it is randomly not starting Vista. It would sometimes be stuck on the black screen before it starts loading, or on the little animated bar. I can't really get back into Windows unless I restart in safe mode, then restart the computer again. Only then, it starts normally. Otherwise, it starts fine most of the time (or at least half the time).

I don't know exactly what's going on, this might happen about 3-4 times a week now. I don't want to sound paranoid, but I think it happened less frequently before (I think this started about 3-4 weeks ago). I back up all my data so if it is my hard drive(s), I'm prepared. Here are my specs:

Windows Vista 64-bit
Intel Quad cores (x2)
SuperMicro MBD-X7DAL-E-O motherboard
250gb (x2) main drives in RAID 0
160GB internal storage (not in use)
GeForce 8800GTX
700W OCZ PSU
4GB RAM

Any ideas on what causes stuff like that to happen? I don't think I'm running hot, I got a really good case with 2 10" fans on the side, and 1 120mm on the back. Sometimes this would happen on cold starts.

 

[Proximon]

Why are you using a server board? And what processor are you using?

 

[z999]

try replacing your memory stick or if you have 2GBX2 then try booting w/ only one of them or in another slot.

 

[MajorAmby]

My processors, I have two of them on my PC.
Intel Xeon E5310 Clovertown 1.6GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 771 80W Quad-Core Active or 1U Processor
(x2)

I do a lot of 3D work, so it helps having the most processing power as practical.

Also, z999 you think it is my ram?

 

[MajorAmby]

Ok, I know it's been a while, but I thought I'd give an update. The issue is still a mystery to me. My computer seems to be not starting Windows up more frequently (almost every time). As of very late however, I haven't had any issues the last 4 times I booted up - which is just sooo weird. I did the Vista Memory Diagnostic check, and the RAM seems fine according to that.

One problem I forgot to mention last time is that sometimes I would try to pull up Firefox and Chrome, and only Chrome would come up. Many many minutes later (after I had forgotten I had tried to get FF out), FF finally comes up. This wouldn't happen all the time, but it does happen occasionally. When this does happen, I go into task manager (alt+ctrl+del) and the task manager doesn't come up, but is shown on the system tray. If I click the icon for the task manager on the system tray to pull it up, it does not come up. It will eventually come up when FF does though.

One thing that DOES happen on this situation, is that when I go to restart or shutdown Vista, it will take a long time, and THEN all the applications that I clicked on would finally come up. But by then it would be too late because it is commencing the shutdown / restart process.

I was thinking about checking my hard drives. How would I go about doing that? I'm really tempted into just formatting and trying this all over again but it is so annoying...

 

[MajorAmby]

It's amazing I haven't had more responses. I would have thought for sure more than 2 people would have chimed in! But oh well...

I'm still not really sure what it was, but I think I it was an incorrectly installed program. All my hardware seemed fine, so it must have been software. I found that there was an unfinished installation of UT3 on there, but before the attempt to install it was made, the issues were present, so I don't know how it could have been the cause of it.

However, once I uninstalled it though, things have been ok. It just didn't dawn on me that uninstalling UT3 (or what was available of it) was probably what did it.

This is just an update in case anyone else might run into the same situation.