I Challenge ANYONE to Figure THIS Out!

I did a mass amount of research on these forums for parts to build my first comp. Antec 900, Core Duo E8500, Gigabyte MB P43 PCI-E 2.0 supports 1066 DDR2 ram, 4 gig DDr2 1066 ram, HD4870 card, SATA optical drive SATA western dig hard drive. Etc. All compatable. Vista 64bit to read all 4 gigs. Put it all together, loaded Vista, loaded drivers, updated drivers, did windows update etc etc etc. FIrst trouble I ran into was my new 22" monitor was taking FOREVER to pick up any kinda picture, it just kept sittingin standby. Fnally when it did it was on for good. So anwyays, I was on the computer for like 6hrs, turned it off, went to bed. Got up the next morning, turned it on, and it kept cycling through reboot. Meaning this:

Boot to windows ->restarts -> screen comes up saying windows was improperly shut down and to select a boot option -> wouldnt recognize my keyboard to select an option, so, i have to wait 30 seconds for it to auto select to start windows -> boot to windows -> restarts -> OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

So i take the computer all apart and put it back together. I power it up, same thing happens

So I think maybe I got a bad file or something so I reformat the HD and reinstall everything again, only this time I leave out the Windows and Bios updates just to see. Works fine, that must have fixed it. Turn computer off and I go to bed

Get up the next morning, turn it on -> The reboot cycle begins endlessly AGAIN

This is when I took it to Best Buy. They tell me it is cause of the audio wire being set to HD and not AC97, and that they fixed it.

They didnt.

So, my work uses a highly reputable computer place. I take it there. Guy assures me he will get to the bottom of it. Tells me if it makes me feel better he has worked on over 10000 computers in his life.

A week later, he calls me and tells me he has NO IDEA WTF is wrong. Says Best Buy is full of crap bout the audio thing but that he has no idea. He THINKS it is a power management issue with Vista and it MAY have something to do with the fact my ram is 2.1v and the standard DDR2 is 1.8v and such but really just doesnt know. His only suggestion was to get 1.8v ram, a MB that wasnt so new (a P35) and if that doesnt work he doesnt know.

Enjoy =)

What brand RAM do you have.

My dads PC's that I built for him, both Gigabyte boards (1 GA-G31M-S2L, and 1 P35-DS3R) Have had similar issues. The only left on 24/7 would start going into a restart cycle after 3-4 days of running. This was with Crucial DDR2 800, rated for 2.2v. We bought some OCZ 1.8v DDR2 and it has been running strong for close to a month now 24/7.

I talked to Crucial and they said they have become aware of this problem and have redesigned the Ballistix line, and think the newer version will work properly. I have sent 2 sets to them to get switched out, I am hoping once I get it back, his PC's can run it without messing up.

okay let me take a crack at this

1)reset the CMOS

2)could possible be a HDD driver issue, try installing SATA drivers that should be included in motherboard CD.

3)could be something wrong with your ram. try only using one stick of ram or using a different slot to see if there is a problem with the mobos ram slot.

Im going to guess that you didnt reset the boot device to be the HDD and its trying to boot from another device over and over.

If you didnt forget to change the boot priority back ( im guessing that tech guy would have caught that) make sure the bios is seeing the drive you are trying to boot from and make sure the CMOS battery is holding the settings. If the battery is weak and the CMOS is clearing after the solid power is cut when you shutdown it might be resetting things and causing the HDD to not be recognized.