PC won't boot on a reset

Case: Enlight MidiTower - 300W
Mainboard: MSI MS-6788 (Neo-LS) BIOS v1.6
Graphics Card: Asus Radeon 9600SE
Memory: 2 x Kingmax 512 MB TinyBGA - DDR RAM PC3200 400MHz
Hard-Disk: Seagate 200GB, 7200rpm - SATA150, 8MB Buffer
DVD-RW: Pioneer Black 8X DVD+R & 8X DVD-R, DVD+/-RWDVD, CDRW
Monitor: LG Electronics 19" Flatron LCD Screen,1280x1024 , .3mm pixel - Digital
OS: Windows XP Service Pack 1

When I power on the PC, works fine, boots as normal, either selecting "Restart" within Windows or hitting the reset button, the PC will reset fine, however, will not display an image on the monitor, and not boot. Any ideas?

Bad Motherboard!

Displaying a image Before Post is a function of the motherboard, power supply, and the Video card. Since the video card displays when you perform a normal boot..... you can look at bios settings or possibly flash the bios. I doubt it would be the power supply but I guess anything is possible!

I have flashed to the latest BIOS.

Hum, might be an error occurring that you don't see..

On Windows XP, when a stop error occurs it can seem like the system is just rebooting its self. You might see a flash of blue just before the machine restarts itself. This is because Windows XP is set to automatically restart by default when a blue screen error occurs

The first step to try and solve your problem is to make the error actually readable. Open your system properties, click the advanced tab and then the settings button under startup and recovery. Uncheck 'Automatically Restart' and OK all of the open windows. Next time a stop error is generated you should be able to see it now.


Since the puter runs OK except for the soft boot, I'm suspecting a O/S problem.

Murf, I think you mis-understood. The OS or PC DOES NOT reboot itself....WHEN I manually select "Restart Computer" from within Windows, the PC will not display POST upon restart, OR if I manually reset the PC via the reset button, the PC will once again display no POST. I have to physically shut down the PC, and power on again to get POST.

i wonder if power line switch cord is on backwards- it leads to power button to board

or reset cord on backwards

well, I replaced the 300W PSU with a 450W PSU from advice from someone at the MSI forums, no change. I then decided to try and boot the PC with one stick of memory at a time, IT WORKS FINE! I try with two sticks, no go...I have ruled our bad memory, because both sticks work fine on there own....any other ideas besides change PSU? maybe a BIOS setting?

When you tested the RAM did you attempt to boot and reboot using each DIMM in both slots? It maybe a faulty slot that is causing the problem. Would I be correct to assume that your Vid Card is AGP?

Ofcourse Calpitor. The advice from the MSI forums suggest to try and increase DDR voltage to 2.6V, then try 2.65V etc to a MAX of 2.75V. that actually makes some sense...

I will now ask that stupid obvious question that needs to be asked?

I try with two sticks, no go...I have ruled our bad memory, because both sticks work fine on there own.

Are both sticks identical, single or double sided? speed?

Well if I would of read your 1st post:

Memory: 2 x Kingmax 512 MB TinyBGA - DDR RAM PC3200 400MHz

That answer's my question DUH.

You running an Athlon XP+ what speed?

Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz 800MHz FSB, 512K 478pin .13u CPU (Boxed) - Hyperthreading

1.7 bios is available too. Might flash bios to latest revision as well as trying those voltage changes.

just an update. I ended up replacing the Kingmax TinyBGA for Kingmax standard memory...to no avail. I supplied the PC to the client with one 512MB memory module...a warning to all users...stay away from MSI MS-6788 (Neo-LS) mainboards.