[Elvandil]

It would be encouraging to see the machine boot to something, even if only a CD for now. That would help us eliminate some possibilities. If the memory test comes back OK, then the only other possibility is the motherboard or the connections.

[tspar85]

Well, I ran the seagate diagnostic, and it ran completely. I'm looking at the dos menu right now. this is what one of the boxes says:

Device 0 is Seagate device ST380815AS
On nVidia nForce4 Sata
Device is 48 Bit Addressed - max LBA 156301488
This drivce supports security features
SMART Is supported and enabled
SMART has NOT been tripped
DST is supported
Logging feature set is supported
POA 25 Current temp34 worst temp 40.

Does that mean anything? What about the other tests or files?

[Elvandil]

That looks very good for the drive. People really do get bad, brand new drives sometimes. And that makes diagnosis all that much more difficult since no one wants to believe that a new drive could be the problem . How about memory? I thought you were referring to the link in post #12, so that is where our communication wires got crossed. So try that one now and see what the condition of the memory is.

That's very encouraging that DOS runs. And the drive looks fine.

But DOS only uses some of the memory, so we should still test that.

[tspar85]

I'm running the memtest-86 v3.3 now. Looks like it's gonna take awhile tho.

[Elvandil]

Yes, a full test takes a long time. You may even want to let it run all night. But major errors will show up fast, so if there are any, it won't take long. Any error whatsoever is not allowable. So if you see one, stop the test and make a note of what was wrong.

How many memory sticks do you have and what sizes? You can speed up the memory diagnosis by taking out one stick at a time and trying to install Vista. That is possible if your sticks are large enough.

[tspar85]

I've got 3 512 dims in there, and I think I'm just gonna let the whole thing run to make sure everything's covered. I'll figure it out tomorrow sometime.

If the memory isn't the issue, what could it be?

[Elvandil]

Good question. SATA drivers, maybe? Is the DVD clean and unscratched? Do you have a lens cleaner for the drive?

It could be a bad board, too, though the DOS is encouraging. So far, it looks like only things that use VGA are trouble, so the video card is another possibility.

It's good to see that it boots to DOS, though.

I know you feel pretty secure about all the connections, but check them.

You could try one stick at a time since Vista will run on 512.

Good luck. I or someone will be here tomorrow.