Weird booting problem

[bucwylde23]

This is a random problem that I can't figure out. It doesn't happen all the time, but when I unhooked my computer to re-arrange my office on Saturday I had this problem after booting back up.

When I try to boot from a CD/DVD, my system hangs. For example, when I try to boot from my acronis boot disc, it shows "Starting acronis loader..." and then sits there. Acronis never loads. It does the same with the Windows XP/Vista discs. They load the setup files, then hang.
Windows will not boot, either.

It eventually starts working, though I don't know why. It's not my hard drives, as I've tried 2 different drives.

What do you guys think? I've removed 2 of my 4 512MB DIMMs as a test and the problem was still there. Guess I should still test the last 2.

This computer is under warranty from Dell and the tech is coming this week to fix it so I need to know what the problem is.

 

[solas989]

If you want to know if it is your memory for sure, use MemTest86+. Say run it over night to to get multiple passes of the RAM.

It "could" be the dvd/cd drive not being able to read the discs? Is the access light blinking while it "hangs"? Are your discs scratch free?

Good Luck

Solas

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: solas989
If you want to know if it is your memory for sure, use MemTest86+. Say run it over night to to get multiple passes of the RAM.

It "could" be the dvd/cd drive not being able to read the discs? Is the access light blinking while it "hangs"? Are your discs scratch free?

Good Luck

Solas

Actually I forgot to mention that I tested the DVD burner drive also. I took a DVD-ROM drive out of another computer and installed it to test. Same problem. but that still doesn't change that fact that Vista won't boot when the problem appears. When I reboot Vista says that it was shut down incorrectly and I have the option to "Start windows normaly", "Last Known Good config" and safe mode.

I will download and run memtest86+ tonight and see what happens. thanks!