PC posts, then freezes. Any clue as to what's wrong?

Factual Questions
1

PC question: NOT answered in this thread.

Yesterday, after doing some processor-intensive work, my PC locked up; frozen mouse pointer, no keyboard response, the usual. I attempted a reboot, and the motherboard posted, but then again the computer locked up.

[Boot screen - doesn’t get farther than this.]

That’s it. If I hit [DEL} to setup, a line readinf "Entering setup
displays, but then nothing happens.

Everything is seated, nothing’s unplugged, and I reset the CMOS. Still, nothing. Tried plugging in the backup BIOS that comes with the Albatron motherboard. Nothing changes. Before I go out and get a new motherboard, is there anything else I should be looking at?

2

Did you hear any beeps aside from the normal “everything is okay” beep? Or does your motherboard come with LED status lights that might indicate a problem?

Also, if you’re using more than one slab of RAM, you could try removing all of them and leaving just one in at a time individually to see if one of them might be bad.

Lastly, how long did you wait at startup? I’ve seen the BIOS/post appear to hang for several minutes, but it finally finished after that and displayed what it was trying to do (in my case, I think it was trying to access an IDE device that was plugged in but unpowered).

3

The one beep, then nothing. Status lights are all normal.

4

I tried waiting several minutes, and … nothing. Tried unplugging the IDE devices, too, and still nothing. That usually gets me a “boot drive cannot be found”-type error, but not this time.

5

Did you try the RAM thing too or did that not apply?

6

I only have one stick. I didn’t swap with my second PC, but it’s worth a shot. Is it more likely that it’ll be the RAM?

7

I don’t know if it’s likely, but it’s possible. It’s worth trying before you set out to buy a new motherboard.

Or you can wait a while to see if anyone else has better suggestions?

8

From the boot screen, it appears the BIOS never ran the RAM test. If this is true, you should be getting an error message, but there’s none on the screen. A RAM swap is worth a try, but I doubt that’s the problem.

You say you’ve already reset the BIOS to default settings. Try (if possible) turning off BIOS shadowing, disabling secondary cache, and reducing all cache/memory/hard-disk timing to the slowest possible settings. If you have a spare video card, that’s worth as shot as well.

I doubt any of these are the possible cause, but they’re easy to rule out. If none of it fixes your problem, it’s time to get a new motherboard.

9

Unfortunately, I can’t even get into the BIOS settings. Hit [DEL] on boot, and you get the same results, only with a “Entering setup” line at the bottom. From there, it locks.

10

Looks like I’ve got one of those one-in-a-million problems. Always happens to me.

I’m going to order a new mobo. Thanks anyhow.