Page 1 of PC continually rebooting at start up..help required PLEASE!

Past week or so, my PC has been having problems starting up. When i switch on, it begins to boot up, but then it stops or locks up before getting to the XP display page.
I then hit the reset button, and the PC begins to boot up again, and this time it gets to the desktop, only to start to reboot on its own! This, along with the mouse/keyboard freezing on the desktop when it does finallly boot up is beginning to p*ss me off a bit.

No error messages are appearing either, just the scan disk page after each reboot due to shutting down wrongly.

It takes around 4 or 5 efforts to get the pc to finally work ok, but it is begining to slowly get worse.

Can anyone suggest what may be causing this problem?

The tower is not over heating, all leads are in place.AVG has scanned the PC and found
no tojan dialers or bugs, so i`m at a complete loss as to what it is.

Any help would be much appreciated. :)

This item was edited on Sunday, 5th June 2005, 22:41

Could be any one of a number of things, but, at a guess, I`d suggest the following

1. Cables and cards-make sure all cards are seated firmly in their slots and all internal cables are firmly in their slot

2. Memory-could be faulty, could just be not making the full connection-take out the stick (s) and re-seat. If you have 2 or more and re-seating doesn`t fix it, take them out and try then one at a time on their own. If one of them causes the problem, there is your answer.


3-PSU-Personally, I think this may well be `it`, but try the others first. Try and get your hands on a new (or at least different-known good) PSU (preferrably of a higher wattage than you currently have). Depending on what you`ve got in your PC, you could be running it close to it`s limits and if you`ve installed something new-that could be the catalyst for sending your current psu over the edge, or it could have developed a non- fatal flaw .

4-CPU-It could be that your PSU has developed a fault-hard to really test. You aren`t overclocking are you?If so, drop it back to it`s correct level. If you are running an Athlon XP processor, try going into the BIOS and bring the frequency the cpu works on down (i.e. if it`s supposed to run on 166Mhz, drop to 133) .

I`ve currently got an issue with my PC which does exactly what you are describing-I know the fault is in my psu, but `underclocking` does the trick until I can land a good psu at the right money.

could be other things too-like some dry joint somewhere which isn`t making the connection from cold, but once it`s started and re-started a few times, it heats up and expands far enough to make contact to keep you running.

Good Luck!!

Hoofy had random crashes on the desktop at home, which I have also experienced this weekend.

Full adaware & AV sweeps.

Removal of heavy dust\dirt build up on CPU & graphics card fans (including disasembly of fans from heat sinks).

Cleaning dust dirt from all vents.

I was testing for a known event that caused the crashes far more frequently today, this being the truelly awful Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website promoting "Doctor Who aka The Planet Of The Doctor" before I realised my PC had developed full AI & was commiting suicide at the sheer awfulness of the website*.



I quite like the Helpdesk people in a benevolent (as opposed to malevolent) way as they do some valuable work in preventing us being inundated by every halfwit who can work a phone.

*You really won`t beleive how awful this site looks......

This item was edited on Monday, 6th June 2005, 00:01

Hi,
go to control panel -> System
Click the Advanced tab and press settings button for the Sartup and Recovery options
Uncheck the Automatically Restart box.
Windows should record some kind of message or stack dump when it gets an error - take a look at the Note where the dump directory is and take a look at the directory specified in the small dump directory field on the same screen.

HTH

Dave

I had a similar problem. I suspect it was dodgy RAM, but in the meanwhile ended up getting a new mobo and cpu. Still had similar problems until I got new RAM that was compatible with the mobo (don`t always believe Kingston`s website!)

I am still having major start up problems with my PC. I decided to let my brother have a look at it as he is pretty clued up on these things and he found no problems with it at all :/
He ran it for several hours, swithing it off and on again and again, ran system checks, fan and speed checks ect ect and nothing was wrong. I get the PC back and it starts playing up again >:(

He has suggested a "power" problem at my house could be the cause. Either the actual wall socket or the power surge extention lead i have.

Has anyone faced this kind of problem before? Any suggestions as to what to do next?

This item was edited on Sunday, 31st July 2005, 17:23

Is your surge protector wrongly detecting spikes. I assume you have done the obvious by plugging the PC to another socket. The memory issues mentioned is unlikely as you say it is stable when it eventually reboots but you can partially eliminate that theory by trying only one memory stick at a time (if you have more than one).

You could also try enabling APIC mode in the BIOS or even set the BIOS to defaults first. Failing that, reformatting the drive and reinstalling Windows is the only other method I can think of.

i had a similair problem, do you get up to the windows screen and then it reboots from there??? if so what i did as reinstalled windows again and it was all up and running again.

hope this helps

you could try running the recovery console from the xp cdrom or try taking it to another house aside from your brothers to see if its okay there in which case its as he says problems with your electricity supply in which case mebbe a ups is required

This item was edited on Friday, 5th August 2005, 23:41

How can the recovery console be used to fix this? Also what use will the UPS be? If the power is at fault would it affect the UPS which, incidentally, only gives about 30 minutes of use for a good one.