Ok, first of all, hello everyone. I'm new here, but hope to extend my geekiness here, hoping it doesn't interfere with my nerdiness =)

Anyway, myself and a friend are having an issue during startup, both on Win Vista. Myself on Ultimate, him on Home. Anyway, I have an external WD hard drive, he has a wireless mouse/keyboard transmitter. Both machines will not bootup with either of these devices plugged in. Startup stops at the RAM check. If the devices are unplugged, the machines bootup no problem, and then we have to plug the devices in after startup. All in all, not a terrible issue, but an annoyance nonetheless. Any ideas?

Welcome to D-A-L

A failure at the BIOS POST (RAM) should have nothing at all to do with the Operating System as it is not engaged yet.

What your situations appear to have in common is USB devices.

Did either of these setups ever work?

Did you build these computers? If not what is the make and model?

Are you sure the motherboard drivers are all installed? Especially USB drivers?

Originally Posted by jephree

Welcome to D-A-L

A failure at the BIOS POST (RAM) should have nothing at all to do with the Operating System as it is not engaged yet.

What your situations appear to have in common is USB devices.

Did either of these setups ever work?

Did you build these computers? If not what is the make and model?

Are you sure the motherboard drivers are all installed? Especially USB drivers?

I wouldn't think OS is important either, but when I had XP, I could bootup with any USB devices attached. Not sure what you mean by "did either of these setups ever work". As I said, without these specific devices plugged in (my hard drive, his usb infrared transmitter), the PC's bootup no problem. My machine is custom built, my friend has an HP laptop, not sure of model. The chipset drivers are of course installed, I've had this PC close to 1 year now.

Hello?

I would browse your BIOS Setup program looking for any "Plug and Play" or "automatic detection" or other "USB" options.