Problems with startup but totally stable...im confused

[pwrntspd]

In june of 2008 a bought a GA-EP45-DS3R motherboard and E7200 C2D.
I have since overclocked them. About two months ago i started having boot up issues. I dont know what the deal is but now even at stock speeds it wont start up initially. It will try to start up and then get stuck at "testing memory" and then reboot. And when it reboots it starts up just fine. When i over clock it and turn off and then turn it back on it does the same thing but resets to stock settings. I dont know whats going on. The oddest thing about it is that i ran a stress test "prime 95" with no problems for 6 hours yesterday, and its totally stable...

Any ideas?

Heres my current settings.

GA-EP45-DS3R

E7200 C2D @3.4GHz 400MHz 8.5 mulit

4GB dual channel OCZ reaper heatpipe @ 400MHz timings 5-4-4-15 and 2.1V

Asus HD 4850 stock

Running windows XP SP3

 

[cheepstuff]

so it auto-resets to stock speeds?

i also take it that you are only having this trouble at cold boot, that is to say, you could reboot at any point when it has been on for a while and it will work fine.

it may be a software issue from HDD corruption ( that happened to me once, had to reboot three or for time before it would run )
it could also be a mobo issue ( indicating why the clock settings are reset )

 

[pwrntspd]

Thats correct, only when cold booting. I dont think is the hard drive, unless the drive itself is physically damaged because ive wiped windows 4 times in the last month testing the machine. I was also thinking it was the mother board, or possibly the ram.

 

[pwrntspd]

But do you think its a software issue? The motherboard is less than a year old. and if it is the motherboard what part? and why? ive tried 3 different bios versions and that doesnt seem to make a difference.

 

[cheepstuff]

when i built my system, i origenaly used an 80gig HDD a raided from another computer. there was always a problem with it. some software issue here or there that i could never completely fix. i had even reinstalled windows several times, but to bad for me. one of the problems was that i had to try to boot three or four times from a cold boot. i eventualy replaced the hard drive and all my problems went away.

 

[pwrntspd]

Ok ill try putting it on another harddrive, thanks.