Now this is something I have not seen before. Turned on the computer and got this error message: i/o card parity interrupt at f000:f188. I was given the option to shut down or reboot, shut down turned off the computer and reboot gave the same message. I checked online to see what this could be and found it might be a new hardware installation (no new hardware was installed), it might have something to do with the bios needing to be updated (computer right next to it with same version, installed at same time boots with no errors).
I checked in the case and all cards are secure, the ram in secure and the cables are tight. I was able to get the computer to boot fully by tapping the DEL key, but when restarted it went to the error message again. There are only two cards installed, a video card and a firewire card. The video is on a riser, firewire into a pci slot.
Fiddled with it some more and it has now booted fully again. Going to put a big sign on it "DO NOT TURN OFF".
Still looking for the reason for the error.
Dell Optiplex 755
WinXP Pro sp3
core2 duo, 2.53ghz
2gb ram
bios version A11 dated 8/4/08
Thanks