Distinctive Mobo Errors with my Win XP

Distinctive Mobo Errors with my Win XP

Alright, this one’s going to be a little bit complicated as there are a lot of things that I need to consider since you have not provided most of the necessary information.  Please note, in the future that when you are going to post any question, it will help us provide the correct solution if you try to include everything about the problem, including any error codes.  You especially mentioned that you get a blue screen, do you get it as a blank screen or is it the infamous Blue Screen Of Death?  BSOD or Blue Screen of Death is a situation wherein your system freezes in a blue background it error codes written.  This is helpful in determining the exact problem of the system.

Now on the possible solution for your problem:

1. You did say that you tried using just one stick of RAM at a time.  By any chance have you also tried using different RAM slots?
2. Taking out the CMOS battery from the system resets your BIOS configuration.  Try loading the optimal defaults.  It’s different with every BIOS version but normally you can load the default configuration by getting into the BIOS and pressing F9.
3. Checking for blown capacitors is not a solution.  If there is a blown capacitor in your motherboard, then it will render it unusable.  You won’t even be able to see your Windows welcome screen if that happens.  For this kind of problem, it’s more likely to be either a hardware problem or a configuration problem, thus following step 2 is highly recommended.
4. Since you are getting a video initialization error message, there might also be a problem with your video device.  Now, since you have a video card, you might want to try to remove the video card from the system and use the onboard or embedded video device on the motherboard.  If it works then the main problem was the video card. 
5. For the memory initialization failure, there are a lot of things that we need to consider.  One is that it might be the RAM sticks, or another is that it might be the video card memory that’s giving out the error message.  If you are still getting this message even after removing the video card, then try redoing the first step, this time without the video card in the system.
6. You might also want to try to remove all connected device on the system.  Meaning, if you have 2 Optical Drives and a couple of hard drives, remove everything except one of the hard drives that has the operating system and try to start the system. 
7. You might want to also make sure that there are no other external USB devices that connected to the system.  Any kind of USB device should be disconnected, and then try to turn the system on.  This is because, if there are other hard drives connected, even if its an external device and any other ISB device connected, Windows performs a scan of all these devices during the boot up phase, and as such it creates a lag in the boot up part and sometimes results into errors.