More of a "vent of frustration" - but updated the details slightly to the original post. I've tried everything mentioned - though would *expect* that the memory suggesstions would result in a memory error code appearing during some attempt at boot up, rather than killing off the entire process - not even the first squeak from the speaker.
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Bit of a long story - bear with me (get a coffee?).
Around April 1st, when the doohickey virus was due to hit us all, I downloaded Explorer 8 Beta. Very shortly afterwards, the Explorer 8 RC was released and installed itself (though I had the "let me do it myself option" checked).
Since then, very odd happenings. Computer will run just fine for many hours/days then suddenly freeze, no mouse movement, no button clicks...nuth'n. Graphics working just fine. Only line of defense is a restart. It's not an "everyday" occurrence - but it happens.
I have no symptoms of the virus, nor any mention of a problem from the daily full system scans of my machine. AVG Pro.
Starting: Click the start button, all the stoopid blue LED's come on. I hear a fan running strangely - spooling up, slowing down, spooling up etc.
Computer gets harder and harder to start. Last few days, 90% of start attempts result in absolutely nothing other than fans running. No video to screen, no boot up. About 70% of clicking start button again gives an instantaneous shutdown (not a four second hold down) - the other 30% do require the four second holdown, which would suggest that *something* has happened in there.
Of the remaining 10% of tries, 70% of those will start to show the boot process, on screen graphics showing the BIOS date and 512Mb of RAM, then a memory count, then IDE drive detection, then RAID drive detection....and onwards towards the "Welcome Screen", desktop wallpaper, icon load, windows sidebar load and eventually....running.
70% of those that do start to show the boot up will end with a freeze part way through - at totally variable points in the procedure.
Yesterday - big troubleshooting day, as machine TOTALLY refused to boot in any way, shape, or form.
Swapped the processor with my wifes machine - both ran prefectly in hers, neither ran in mine.
Swapped the video cards (again) - both ran perfectly in hers, neither would run in mine.
Removed all memory sticks from my computer - not a bit of difference, not a shred of life on the monitor.
Put my power supply into her machine, perfect - couldn't do hers into mine - not enough power leads for all the SATA drives.
Rebuilt both, with occassional stops to play with iPhone, got all my machine back together, put it in it's place in the cabinet, hit start - "PRING"...100% immediate start.
I've not turned it off yet - but what the hell can be going on?
Processor checked, power supply checked, memory didn't allow partial boot up and then error code (so works?), graphics card checked, motherboard must be working now (but hasn't been checked anywhere else). Numerous attempts to restart when graphics frozen - but computer components hot. Numerous attempts to start from very cold components - not run for 8 hours or more. (The dry joint theory, above).
Any extra thoughts? Apologies for the repetition.