I hope that someone can help me with my latest problem. My system was working fine before last night. I recently purchased an additional 256mb RAM. Last night I installed it, plugged everything back in and turn it on. I received the “blue HP INVENT� screen and that was it. After about a minute or so, I shut the system down, fired it back up, and got the same result except this time it eventually went to a black screen with a few options. The options were a couple different ways to start in Safe Mode, start in the last previous successful start, normal startup, etc. I tried them all and got the same results…it would always go back to the black screen with the same options. I tried hitting F-8 to go to Safe Mode and once I did that, I got the same results.
I do not have a floppy disk “startup disk for XP� to jump-start the system. I the OEM Windows XP CD in the disk drive and restarted the system. The light came on but it did not read the CD it went back to the blue HP Invent screen and then to the black screen with the different options.
My computer system…

HP Pavilion PC Model XE745
Intel (R) Celeron (TM) 733 MHz processor
320 MB SDRAM (tried to upgrade to 512mb)
Windows XP Home Ed.
80 GB Hard drive
Video Graphics - PCI Interface
Controller - Intel 810
Video Memory - 11 MB shared system memory, integrated graphics, not upgradeable

I seriously need some help!!!! Thanks!

A couple of things here, is the memory that you installed still in the system. If so remove it and try to boot you PC again..

You can check to see if the PC is set to boot up from CD-Rom by going into the BIOS, look for the Words Press F2 to enter setup.. Now it may not be F2 it could be Del or Alt and S etc. When in your Bios look for boot order and make sure CD-ROM is listed higher than hard drive....

Thank you!

I tried it without the new memory and got the same results. I will try to get into the BIOS tonight and then have it boot from the CD. I also just created a WinXP Quick Boot Diskette from using www.bootdisk.com Hopefully one of these solutions will allow me to get the system back up & running and recognizing the new 256 mb ram memory.

I hope all goes well for you

Okay here's the latest. I tried a few different things last night and I was eventually able to get into my bios and change it so the cd-rom was the first choice at start-up. The system started to load the basic files from the CD (just enough) to be able to do something besides see the "blue screen"). During this process I received an error. I wrote down the error and researched it this morning at work. I found out that... "This error is defined as ACPI root PCI resource failure. To discover what current resources are being used by PCI devices, ACPI must be able to query the CRS descriptor in the ACPI namespace. This error occurs if the BIOS lacks a pointer to the list, or if the list is empty, or if the list contains errors or conflicts" During my research I found out that to resolve the error/problem I had to... "contact the manufacturer of your computer to obtain a BIOS that is fully ACPI compliant or to work around this behavior, manually install the Standard PC hardware abstraction layer (HAL):".

My machine is about 5-6 yrs old so I can't really expect any help from HP.

By doing the "work around suggestion" Windows automatically disables the installation of the ACPI HAL and installs the Standard PC HAL.

What effect, if any, will I notice in my system by NOT installing the ACPI HAL?

THANKS!!!!

To be honest I am really not sure.. Maybe worth asking one of the other guys on these forums who know a lot more than me..

Good luck to you, I hope you get it sorted..

hi,
maybe you should just buy a new computer, i mean think of the bennerfits you will have if you buy a new one.

maybe you won't have to but a hole new computer but just the drive.

thanks

xp_helper

Hi, Dave Here!

I had this problem a few weeks ago, it ended up the problem being that the memory you are putting in, may be too powerful for your pc and other memory already inserted and working! Check if the memory already in your pc, has either one side of little chips or two (both sides) if you have both sides of the memory with chips on them, the new memory should have both sides with little chips on! and vice-versa.
Hope this helps

Dave.

PS: Overall the memory need to physically lookthe same, not neccasarly the same company.

Sorri about the spelling!

I got everything fixed last night. I need a Windows XP "repair install". I lost some things like My Document, My Pictures, email in Outlook Express, but it's working great and it recognizes the new memory stick I installed.

I guess I'll never know what really caused the failure now. Thanks!!!

Well that's good to hear!

Dave.