Auto rebooting

[imported_tomcat1]

My old Athlon 1Ghz system was getting old so I upgraded the video card to a new 9600pro that I got off of Ebay. The system wouldn't boot so I sent it back and got a new one and it worked ok for a while then the system started rebooting. I got fed up with the system and thought my MB was bad so I ordered and new ASRock 939-SATAII, AMD 3000+ Venice, 1Gig Kingston memory (2x512), Hitachi Deskstar SATAII 80Gig HD and a Antec 400W PS. It may have been a mistake but I used the old 9600 pro video card.

Anyway. I started the machine and was working ok for a very short time and I got to the point where I could load by boot disk and the darn thing rebooted on me and kept doing it ande not always at the same time. At times it would only get to the first BIOS post and reboot. I cussed a little the took out the 9600 pro and ran up to Wal Mart of all places and picked up a POS GeForce MX 4000 and stuck it in and it continued to reboot at different times again. The only other components in the system that are old are my CD drive and my CD-RW drive plus my floppy. I disconnected my floppy and had one CD drive connected at a time as Master and got the same results. I haven't tried to get a new optical drive yet because I would have to assume both drives are bad that I have.

Has anyone heard of a Monitor causing this problem? In my old system sometimes the monitor would shut off without rebooting so I thought at the time it was a video card so I put in an old TNT2 and the same thing happened.

Is it maybe possible that my Ebay 9600 pro fried two motherboards?

I've built other systems before and never had this problem. Soon my wife will get on my back and ask why I didn't just buy a new system from Best Buy or something.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Sorry for the book of info.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: tomcat1


My old Athlon 1Ghz system was getting old so I upgraded the video card to a new 9600pro that I got off of Ebay. The system wouldn't boot so I sent it back and got a new one and it worked ok for a while then the system started rebooting. I got fed up with the system and thought my MB was bad so I ordered and new ASRock 939-SATAII, AMD 3000+ Venice, 1Gig Kingston memory (2x512), Hitachi Deskstar SATAII 80Gig HD and a Antec 400W PS. It may have been a mistake but I used the old 9600 pro video card.

Anyway. I started the machine and was working ok for a very short time and I got to the point where I could load by boot disk and the darn thing rebooted on me and kept doing it ande not always at the same time. At times it would only get to the first BIOS post and reboot. I cussed a little the took out the 9600 pro and ran up to Wal Mart of all places and picked up a POS GeForce MX 4000 and stuck it in and it continued to reboot at different times again. The only other components in the system that are old are my CD drive and my CD-RW drive plus my floppy. I disconnected my floppy and had one CD drive connected at a time as Master and got the same results. I haven't tried to get a new optical drive yet because I would have to assume both drives are bad that I have.

Has anyone heard of a Monitor causing this problem? In my old system sometimes the monitor would shut off without rebooting so I thought at the time it was a video card so I put in an old TNT2 and the same thing happened.

Is it maybe possible that my Ebay 9600 pro fried two motherboards?

I've built other systems before and never had this problem. Soon my wife will get on my back and ask why I didn't just buy a new system from Best Buy or something.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Sorry for the book of info.

I think the first thing to do is find out why the system is rebooting. Do you get a blue screen? Do you have memory dump files in c:\windows\minidump? Do you have all the XP Windows Updates, and are you running all the latest drivers for all of your hardware? Does the same thing happen in safe mode?

 

[imported_tomcat1]

I can't even get threw the initial stages of loading windows. I'm lucky if I get that far before it reboots. Sometimes it's right after the first BIOS post screen.

I was thinking this morning that I'm using my old case and wondered if my reset switch is shorting out? I had the same reboot problem with my old system, same case! I hate it when the simple things elude me. I'll have to check that out tonight.

The only other thing I can think of is the old video card fried the new MB but I'm not sure why that would cause it to reboot ramdomly instead of a hard fail.

Any other suggestions before I remove the reset switch plug from the MB?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: tomcat1
I can't even get threw the initial stages of loading windows. I'm lucky if I get that far before it reboots. Sometimes it's right after the first BIOS post screen.

I was thinking this morning that I'm using my old case and wondered if my reset switch is shorting out? I had the same reboot problem with my old system, same case! I hate it when the simple things elude me. I'll have to check that out tonight.

The only other thing I can think of is the old video card fried the new MB but I'm not sure why that would cause it to reboot ramdomly instead of a hard fail.

Any other suggestions before I remove the reset switch plug from the MB?

Again, does the same thing happen in safe mode?
Take an XP CD and boot from it into the recovery console and see if you get reboots while doing that.

 

[imported_tomcat1]

I can't even get windows loaded on the hard drive before it reboots. There's no operating system on the had drive to get into safe mode.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: tomcat1
I can't even get windows loaded on the hard drive before it reboots. There's no operating system on the had drive to get into safe mode.

OK; I'll let the hardware guys step in then; it's not a software or XP issue.

I'd wonder if the old power supply from the AMD 1000 box would have the 20-pin connector going to the motherboard; many modern motherboards have an additional power connector that must be hooked up for the board to run correctly. Have you confirmed, via the manual/etc., that all required power is being applied to the board?

Given the previous problem with the previous system, I suppose the first place I'd look is the power supply.

 

[imported_tomcat1]

It's a brand new PS. My old system had a different PS. I called the support as ASRock and they said I had the correct power connectors on the board.

 

[imported_tomcat1]

The whole problem turned out to be my reset swtich on my case!! I disconnected the connector from the motherboard and that's all it took. I'm flying now.

Thanks for the suggestions. Remember the simple solutions can save you a bunch of money!