Computer shutdown and won't boot...

[GiddyupGilbert]

ASUS Mb, 3 gigs of RAM, 1.9 AMD processor with WindowsXP Pro.
Well the machine was operating just fine and I was working on it. All of a sudden it shutdown and turned off. So, I turned it back on, it did the first DOS screen and then went into a blue screen and began a MemTest 86 procedure, but would never go beyond that. I had 3 sticks of RAM (Not new). I pulled them out one stick at a time to see if it would even run with less RAM; always coming back to the same MemTest86 screen. I did notice that the RAM was recognized each time I rebooted. I then took a different set of RAM and put it in. It booted to the MemTest86 screen, recognizing the amount of RAM I'd put in, but would never go further. I hope someone has an idea. I don't. I get the feeling the RAM is good, but that there is a problem on the motherboard. Any input or thoughts will be greatly appreciated. thanks.

[rubberman]

Overheating is often the cause of this sort of symptom. What happens if you leave it off for awhile and try to restore the system? Can it boot into safe mode?

[GiddyupGilbert]

Thanks for the reply. Computer has been off a couple of days and it is still booting to the Memtest 86 configuration screen. And no it won't boot into Safe Mode. That was the first thing I tied.

[caperjack]

i used memtest86 for years ,but did not know you could install it on a computer ,only ever see it for making a boot cd ,how did you get it installed to run at bootup .

did you check you power supply ,it could be acting up .when you have the case open did you look around for swollen/leaky capacitors on the motherboard they look like this .
http://tinyurl.com/6p7jtq4

[GiddyupGilbert]

No I didn't look for the capacitors. It didn't dawn on me and to be honest I wouldn't have known what it would mean if I did. I will check to see if I see anything unusual though. Thanks for that. The Memtest86 apparently was into the Asus sys. I did not install it or even know it was there until the computer acted up.

[caperjack]

The Memtest86 apparently was into the Asus sys. I did not install it or even know it was there until the computer acted up.

ok, didn't ever see that in any computer before

[GiddyupGilbert]

The computer will boot to normal screen with bootable windows disk. That would indicate to me the HDD is OK. So, I'm still at a loss. If I take the CD out and reboot it goes back to the Memtest86 configuration screen, no Safe Mode. CMOS looks like it has always.

[caperjack]

The computer will boot to normal screen with bootable windows disk.

boot to the winxp cd and choose "R" to get to the recover console and run
"chkdsk /r" with out the "" ,and a space between the k and /