A new, out of the box Dell Optiplex 745, Windows XP Pro, no additional software, no antivirus; USB keyboard, USB mouse, VGA monitor, no additional hardware attached. Internal boot hard drive is connected to SATA 0; addtional hard drive is connected to SATA 1; DVD-ROM is connected to SATA 4; DVD-RAM is connected to SATA 5.
On roughly 3 of 4 boots, the Windows spalsh screen will appear and the computer will continue to boot normally; the lights on the front panel confirm this, but when the splash goes away, in 10 or so seconds, the video signal is lost to the monitor.
This is a computer for a school district and as such was purchased through Dell's edu division and the tech support for edu sales is handled by US techs. I called for support and after explaining the problem, the tech said the problem was either "software or hardware." I didn't call back.
I have moved the boot drive from SATA 0 to all of the other ports; same problem. I'm the technology coordinator for our county school system and deal with problems all the time but this one is different because the problem is intermittent.
Any ideas?
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