could this be bad memory?

[rexjason]

I have a new system build with some old componets

New motherboard, cpu, case, and powersupply.

Old memory and hard drives.

When I start the sytem, it locks up when click on my username to load personal settings (Win XP media center 2005).

I tried removing one of the memory sticks (I have two 512 sticks). When I do this, it does not start at all and the system gives me long repeated beeps (the beeps last about one second and come every three seconds). It does this no matter which stick I remove and it does this no matter which bay the stick is in.

 

[GSTe]

Very odd, the beep code means no memory, but one stick should work.....

Could be ram, hard drive or a virus. Difficult to remedy if you can't get the machine to boot. You could run memtest or chkdsk to test the ram and hard drive, but you'd need to download the memtest file and make a bootable cd to test ram, or make a dos bootable disk to run chkdsk for the hdd. Otherwise it'd be easiest to swap out the ram and see if that works. Any chance you can borrow some ram from anyone? Its pretty cheap at the moment if you can't, so may be worth investing. Just odd that one stick doesn't work on its own.... hmmm..... what ram is it, how long have you had it and have you ever overclocked it? Would be useful if you could list your system details actually.