Computer Won't Boot

[jeffc418]

Hey, I've been having some boot problems for a while now, and today I tried to troubleshoot it. There are two different boot problems I encounter. First, when I hit the power button on my computer, the lights come on, the fans spin, but my monitor will remain unchanged. It will not show any text, picture, video, the monitor light does not even turn blue. I know that this problem is not caused by the monitor becuase I have tried it with two monitors. The computer doesn't even make the beep.

The second instance of my boot problem is that the monitor will display the text information in the beginning of the boot process, the BIOS information. Once if gets to the loading screen (where it has the Vista loading bar), it just keeps playing the loading bar animation and does not stop. It won't continue to boot.

What is odd about my problem is that after 3 or 4 attempts, it will usually work. Today, I tried to boot the Vista disc and use their Startup Repair feature, but it told me that there was not a problem. I also managed to get a safe-mode boot and that didn't tell me anything. Honestly, I'm sick of this problem and need to solve it. Please help! I am now considering if it is a processor problem, but I don't know how to test that because I don't have a spare motherboard. Right now I got it to boot and it's running a memory diagnostic, I don't want to keep trying many times to boot! Please help! Thanks!

SPECS:
AMD Athlon 4200+ X2 64-Bit
nForce 590
XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX
X-Fi SoundBlaster Xtreme Gamer
320 GB Hard Drive
Home Premium Vista

[Rob]

I've seen this type of problem occur with a bad video card. The PC won't boot until it physically warms up, then it will boot. Is the video card that's being used been there for a while, or is it once that you've started recently using? If it's recent then that's pretty much for sure the problem. But in either case, I would try swapping out the video card with a different model.

Another possibility is the power supply, especially if you've added anything to the computer recently that would increase the load.

[jeffc418]

Wow, thanks for the quick response! I have been using the video card for a while, but I believe I can swap it out with a card in another computer for a test tomorrow morning.

[jeffc418]

I just realized that I can't swap because the video card I was going to swap it with (5700LE) doesn't use PCI or PCI-E to connect. Is there any other way to test to see if it's my video card?

EDIT: I think I figured it out, it was my USB DVD/CD drive. I unplugged it, it booted. I replugged it in, it didn't boot. I unplugged it, it booted. Yay!

[Rob]

Nice job! Way to stick with it. I think I'll move this post to the First Boot Problems message board. It might come in handy there.