MAJOR computer problem...PLZ HELP!

[TheJackal]

I have the following setup:

P4 3.0C
Asus P4P800 (1005 BIOS)
Antec 1080AMG Case
2 x 512 MB Crucial PC3200XMS
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB SATA
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Windows XP Pro

Everything was working fine until a few days ago when all of a sudden my computer started rebooting randomly. It reached it's worst point two days ago when i couldn't even load into Windows, it would reboot almost as soon as the Windows logo came up. So, i initially thought it was the Blaster virus that was going around as "random reboots" were one of the symptoms. Since it was fairly new, i didn't mind just going ahead and reformatting. It gets through the hard drive reformating process no problem, but as soon as it reboots and loads up the windows setup (where you type in name, serial number, time zone, etc) it starts to reboot itself again. If i'm not mistaken, if it was a virus, the hard drive reformat should have taken care of it? Also, it is not the CPU overheating as the hard drive format takes over an hour and there was no rebooting until i got to the Windows setup screen. Any ideas? Could it be memory?

My memory is set to "Configure DRAM timing by SPD". Shall i set this to disable? If i do this, the default settings are:

DRAM CAS# Latency - 2.5
DRAM RAS# Precharge - 4
DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay - 4
DRAM Precharge Delay - 8
DRAM Burst Length - 8

Is this right? Thanks in advance.

 

[Slappy00]

HAve you changed any parts of your computer before this happened... or have you overclocked any part of your computer?

Further have you tried the Western Digital Life Guard toos (free from western digital)... What are your temps being read as (you can check this in your BIOS)... can you load DOS (with a boot-disk)?

 

[Mday]

can you boot to safe mode?

 

[Nebor]

Get an Abit IS7. Say no to Asus' crap. I had wierd, random problems with a P4c800 deluxe board for months before I just took it back and got an Abit IC7-G. Asus' board was crap, their service is TOTAL crap... I've had it with them. I wouldn't even buy a video card from them.

 

[TheJackal]

I haven't changed anything since i got it (it is not oc'd) and it was working just fine until about a week ago. I also don't think it's the CPU, as i can sit in the BIOS for hours or in a boot disk and it will not reboot. It only starts rebooting when it gets to the Windows setup screen. In any case, the CPU is around 42 C. And no, can't boot into Safe mode...reboots well before that. (that was before i reformatted)

 

[TheJackal]

anyone?

 

[Slappy00]

did you try the western digital data life utilities?

 

[Slammy1]

First, I'd update to BIOS 1.006. It has the boot sector fix. Second, make sure to turn off MAM and Turbo, as these can cause problems. Since you can boot to BIOS, how about running Memtest? Make sure to set USB legacy support to off.