I have a computer that belongs to a friend and I have done EVERYTHING I can think of to get it to start.

My friend complained to me that the machine was constantly freezing or rebooting when it felt like it and had only been doing it for a month or so. He brought it to me and I found that it was doing the same thing. I took off the cover and lo and behold, the CPU Fan was still. This system is an AMD so I thought the CPU was on it's way out but it is strange, they usually just STOP.

Cut to the chase. This is an EPOX 8KRA2+ with S.A.T.A. and P.A.T.A. raid.

When you start the machine, it will go through the P.O.S.T and is about to start windows and then, nothing? It does this in Safe mode or any other mode. I have replaced the Video Card, the Memory, the CPU and Fan, tried 5 HDD's in the machine and also used 2 different well known branded PSU units with 450w each and still, all I can get to is that silly pre start and then black screen. I have tried to install XP and 2K on all the drives and it mostly gets to about hit enter and then BSOD's?? Says IRQ is not equal. (have tried to boot from IDE, SATA and PATA)

At present it is sitting here in Safe mode at mup.sys and that is it. It locks the keyboard as well and yes, I have used 3 different Keyboards. There is ONLY a CDrom HDD and Memory in the machine at the moment and all caching has been turned off in the BIOS. I am REALLY at a loss. BTW, I changed Cables also.

I would like to help my friend with this as he likes it and as this type of board is almost impossible to buy here, I would really appreciate some help.

**** the Capitals I used are to accentuate what I am trying to say and not using them to shout ok?

Says IRQ is not equal. <<- I got this when the drive controller on the board went bad. No way to fix...

Actually almost all of the symtoms you describe happened...

Thanks Kelsen. I thought as much but was hoping someone had come upon similar and fixed?

The starnge thing is that I can play in the BIOS and can see the POST screen. Oh well. again mate, THANK YOU

Yeah I actually completed an installation on the machine too. But the dang thing would never go past the boot screen.

A mobo diagnose card would help ~ inexpensive but effective ~