I have recently run into a problem with my pc and for the first time I'm stumped. My pc is running on windows 2000. I noticed one day that I turned on the power and the pc didn't even begin to boot for 5 minutes. it gave me nothing but black screen. Gradually over the next few days I would get the same black screen but for longer periods. I also noticed that while running windows my clock would reset and my bios always changed. I fixed this by replacing the cmos battery. So my bios and clock's running fine BUT....as the days went on EVERY time I turn on my pc as I said would do nothing for a period of time. it went from 5 minutes to 30 minutes to an hour and now it takes about 4 hours just to start the boot. When it does boot windows runs fine, I checked to make sure the memory was displayed correctly and it is. I have a 128 stick of ddr ram and a 256. I ran AVG and defragmentor and scandisk. Now when I turn my pc on...all the fans are running my harddrive makes the typical clicking noise as if it's doing something but the screen remains black for a few hours before the system actually starts to boot up. I have no idea what else to do. I have one backup restore file that I created about a year ago and I don't mind having to use it as a last resort However I'm just trying to figure this out now before something like this happens again.
anyone have any suggestions? It would be GREATLY appreciated.