Windows XP Home Constant Reboot

therivierakid

Hi,

I hope someone can help... I've got a problem whereby my 5yr old PC is constantly rebooting itself.

I can get to the log-on screen, put in my password and it goes to my desktop. The icons appear and the system tray starts to load. Sometimes it only gets to the log-on screen. Then it just goes black, beeps and reboots. No error messages, no BSOD. I can get into the BIOS OK and I've tried messing around with a few settings there but no joy.
I've tried booting from the XP CD but I can't seem to get that to work at all.
There's no option to go to Safe Mode or anything like that (F8 doesn't work either). In the BIOS I've tried making the CD/DVD drive the only boot-up option but when it asks me to press any key, nothing seems to happen (like the keyboard hasn't been activated).

Prior to the problem starting I was getting frequent unwanted reboots (2-3 per week) but the system always loaded OK afterwards. The last thing I did before I had this issue was install an update to ZoneAlarm.

I'm hoping that this is just a new PSU (the PC has had a total of 3 already!).

I can post the specs if anyone needs them.

Help!!!

closed

uninstall zonealarm first, replace with windows firewall.

therivierakid

closed wrote: »

uninstall zonealarm first, replace with windows firewall.

That's not going to work... the system reboots before I get a chance to do that. But thanks anyway!

jaygomez

Can you borrow another PSU from a friend or from another old PC? But looks like the problem is beyond PSU because you are also having problems changing BIOS settings. Maybe try isolating the problem one at a time...borrow PSU, then keyboard, then RAM until you find the problem because thats the only way I can think to find the source of the problem.

Laz123

Check your fans are working and clean away any dust. It could be an overheating problem.

exup

If you have no joy with system restore, or removing zone alarm.
as Jay and Laz above have said - it could be any number of things. or components. Give it a clean out (try to avoid using a vacuum cleaner) to get rid of dust.
If you have more than one memory stick, try running it with just one, to see if the problem goes away, then swap to the other.
Unplug CD/DVD drives and see if any difference -
Also the IDE or SATA cable connections can oxidise, try unplugging and plugging them back in.

Could even be a case short - if you are confident, you could try nemch testing the PC (by running the equipment out of the box but be careful of heating, and earthing problems). But don't try if you aren't sure about that one.

Maybe just a process of elimination regarding hardware I'm afraid

fleccy

Sounds like a faulty stick of RAM to me, otherwise the PSU.

First thing I would try though would be to use a linux live disk. Is your xp cd bootable?

therivierakid

Right, I've managed to boot to the Win XP (a little USB to PS2 adapter did the trick to get the keyboard to work). Unfortunately halfway through the installation repair the system crashed and just went straight to a black screen. Then booting again to the CD it went to install XP from scratch and crashed again. So I'm guessing it's not a software problem. I'll give it a good dust, unplug and replug everything and see what happens...

therivierakid

Seems to have worked ok. Gave it a good dust - the graphics card was particularly bad. I'm reinstalling XP and all the updates and it's holding up!