Afetr you have set the board to "failsafe" dont forget to "save and exit" :wink:

Safe mode is a mode in Windows that loads the minimal generic drivers needed for Windows to run.
Fail safe defaults are BIOS settings that should work together.

The most likely culprit is memory, Memtest often misses memory problems that
Prime95 (by comparing known correct results with the results of calculations on your PC) and other programs (ie games by crashing after a short time)
uncover.

Sometimes the BIOS detects the memory incorrectly and picks settings
that aren't stable.

Things to try:
It may be as simple as too fast timings for the memory and setting them lower fixes it.
Another easy fix is upping the memory voltage in steps by the minimum amount.
There are other memory settings that could be incorrect and getting them
right will resolve the problem.

More drastic, testing the RAM a stick at a time (or in pairs if it's that type).
Where testing means running Windows and Prime95 or other app that had
problems, with the reduced amount of RAM.

I would agree with dsouza123's suggestion of testing the ram a pair at a time. Test everything with just one of the 1Gb pair, and then re-test with the other 1Gb pair, and then start swapping sticks of each pair to find the one or more that's bad, if any.

As stupid as this now seems - when I boot into Safe Mode the screen says there is a signal error! <_<

In "safe mode" Windoze uses a standard vga driver. This could be corrupted and might be repairable... maybe by booting the XP CD and running the recovery program. (Things might be further complicated by the fact that your mainboard has a built in graphics card.)

Oops: there seems to be a distinction between "recover" and "repair". [URL="http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm"]Here is an explanation of repair[/URL]

My motherboard does not have on-board graphics - only my PCI-E card.

And why would I want to repair Windows?

[QUOTE]And why would I want to repair Windows?[/QUOTE]

because this might remedy:

[QUOTE]As stupid as this now seems - when I boot into Safe Mode the screen says there is a signal error! <_<[/QUOTE]

You did install the motherboard drivers too when you built the system?

But would that explain the sudden loss of signal perhaps?

Could it be the graphics card or RAM I have be what is causing all this trouble?

From the advice that has accumulated here the past few days, my thoughts are as follows:

- Previously - most games I played crash a lot, so to me that would indicate the graphics card. But after using these memory programs, would it be more likely to be my RAM?

Everything I have is still under a full warranty of course, so should I just send it back or is there another program or way within Windows to check what component it is that is playing up?

[QUOTE]But would that explain the sudden loss of signal perhaps?
[/QUOTE]

You only get "no signal" in safe mode, right?

[QUOTE]- Previously - most games I played crash a lot, so to me that would indicate the graphics card. But after using these memory programs, would it be more likely to be my RAM?[/QUOTE]

Unlikely to be a hardware problem -- more likely to be a driver issue, especially because you have run memtest and you are running evry thing at stock speed.

Did you set BIOS to "failsafe" and save?

Right, I just did the BIOS and set it to the fail-safe defaults and then saved + excited from that.

Booted back up and pressed and held down F8, and rthe system clicks and now says the following:

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

So if I do that it re-boots and says the same thing :(