Hi all. I'm having a bizarre issue with my system and I was hoping someone here might have seen this before.

Here is the system for reference:
XP SP3
Q6600 (stock clock)
Zalman cooler
8800GT
2GB Ballistix (stock timing)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 v2
OCZ 1000W PSU
No component over a year OLD

Issue:
A month or so ago, my computer would not always reliably boot. I turn it on, the fans and drives spin up however the monitor never goes active and after ~10 seconds, the system powers off and then on again repeating the cycle. It will not stop doing this unless I hold the power switch or remove the power. At a seemingly random point, the computer will simply boot correctly and everything is FINE. I can run Crysis (or whatever) for hours without heat issues or any other issues.

Note: When cycling the monitor inputs, it does display the different modes so I know the monitor does work.

NOW...

Two days ago, the computer stopped booting at all. Nothing I've done has gotten it past the initial fan/drive spin up. In the last day, I've swapped out the video card and mainboard to no avail. The PSU and RAM are both only a few months old. I've connected different hard drives with different cables with no help (did not expect it to).

Wait, there's more...
Back when I was having the boot issue only intermittently, bringing the system out of standby would *always* bring the computer back. Never a problem coming out of standby. This tells me that the trickle of power for the RAM kept everything 'alive'. I've tried booting with only ONE stick of RAM but this has had no effect.

So what does everyone think? CPU? There are no beeps from the mainboard - even when nothing is installed on the board (such as RAM or V card). This goes for the GA-P35-D4S as well as a temp P31 based board I tried today.

Thanks for the help!

Sean
That's interesting,
as for your continous re-booting, the pc only does that if it notices problems during booting
( there might not have been enough power outputted to important components, causing them to not work)

No beeps, means there's no faulty or misplaced parts. (your good there)


The rest of your problems seem, like they can't be diagnosed over the net, there might be some things you need to find out yourself.

So, as far as i know, there are no faulty parts, and there might be problems with your power supply.





I vote for the power supply. I know its not old but they still can go. Can you get another one to test with?

An update for anyone that runs across this post via a search...

The culprit was two items - the RAM and the PSU. Switched to DDR2 800 RAM (versus the 1066) and it works fine. While testing the system, the PSU blew out.

Reason for the RAM: It is suspected that the P35 chipset the mobo is based on just does not always get along with RAM that runs at +0.4v (stock). Going to try with the new version of the RAM from Crucial that runs at +0.2v.

A note: OCZ and Crucial have been great to work with. There is a list of preferred vendors in your MBoard manual...
This is especially important to have the board run at 1066 at least it is on my ASUS board.
I wound up with OCZ.