catpuss 0 Newbie Poster

Hi, im posting on behalf of a friend who's pc has died. It was fine yesterday, today it only gets as far as the black screen with the lists of things on your pc (as you can tell we are not very technically minded).
It lists
main processor amd duron (tm) 1.300ghz (100x13.0)
memory testing (keeps changing was 5000000 now 300000 approx)
ok

then nothing else until the bottom of the screen where it says
delete to enter setup and escape to skip memory test
Have tried:
restarting, switching off at mains, waiting and starting,
checked all external connections, checked all internal connections and dusted (not with polish, not that daft!)
F2 made memory change
F8 did nothing,
delete and escape did nothing,

Its two years old and running windows XP, have not recently installed any new hardwear or softwear

Any help would be appreciated, as her sons homework is on it and due in tomorrow!!

thanks