computer keeps rebooting

[Young Grasshopper]

just came back from vacation and now my desktop keeps rebooting during post. i can hear the fans/hard drive winding up, it then shuts everything and tries to power it self on again. same thing happens over and over again. anyone know what this might be? im thinking the power supply.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Young Grasshopper
just came back from vacation and now my desktop keeps rebooting during post. i can hear the fans/hard drive winding up, it then shuts everything and tries to power it self on again. same thing happens over and over again. anyone know what this might be? im thinking the power supply.

It powers up then shuts down then powers up by itself??? I had that happen to me when I was building my system in my sig last month. A cpu reseat took care of the problem but that sounds like that might not fix your problem since you didn't do anything to your comp. Easy way to check is to disconnect all the unneeded stuff like cdrom's/hardrives/fans/etc and power up with just cpu/videocard/ram. With the computer off try wiggling all power connectors on mobo/videocard.

 

[mpilchfamily]

While you where gawn was the system left plugged in?

Where there any major storms durring that period?

 

[Young Grasshopper]

ok i figure it out but dont know how to fix it. there is a 4 prong power connector that goes right above the cpu. when i disconnect it the computer boots and stays up but i get no video. also the drives(hd and dvd) dont spin up. when i do connect it hd and dvd spin up but then the pc reboots over and over again.

 

[mpilchfamily]

In that case the PSU is shot and possibly the motherboard. I hope you didn't leave the system plugged in while you where gown. If so there was probably a surge that killed the system. I always unplug all of my electronics when i leave for a trip. This way my electric bill will be lower and if any big storm comes along i don't have to worry about anything.

 

[Young Grasshopper]

any way to find out if its the motherboard or psu? and also i left it in a surge protector, isnt this supposed to prevent stuff like this? also i live in socal there were no storms here and i ussally leave my pc on for remote access.

 

[mpilchfamily]

If you want to check it then get anotehr PSU and see if the system boots up. If not then the board is shot. You can also look at the motherboard to see if there are any buldging capacitors.

Surge protectors are not perfect. If they have been threw a ruff storm where you may have lost power then the surge protector may have prevented a hit and may not be able to protect your system anymore. A simple brown out can cause a surge that could damage your system. Also it is possible that the PSU is just giving out or, as eluded to above, the capacitors on the motherboard could be going bad.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

i'd put my money on a psu problem

 

[Young Grasshopper]

im gonna go buy another psu at frys tomorrow thanks

 

[Zap]

My work computer did this. Turned out to be a failed motherboard (MSI socket 939). Let us know if the new PSU fixes it.

 

[Young Grasshopper]

swapped out motherboard(now an asus, before was a gigabyte) and it seems to boot up. now i cant get the os to load, just says OS not found. any trick to making the mobo see it?

 

[Zap]

Ahhh, so it was the motherboard?

Changing motherboards sometimes fubars Windows, but it usually at least tries booting. Double check that your hard drive is connected and seen by BIOS, and set it as the only bootable device.

 

[Young Grasshopper]

changed mobo and reformatted machine every works fine so far however when i reboot the machiine it doesnt actually reboot just stays in black screen.

 

[Quiksilver]

Can you list your complete system specs?

 

[Young Grasshopper]

Crucial Ballistix 4GB (4 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804 - Retail
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6750 - Retail
LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with 12X DVD-RAM write and LightScribe Technology Black E-IDE/ATAPI Model LH-20A1H-185 - OEM
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel , SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
EVGA 320-P2-N815-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
ASUS 5PQ SE Motherboard
Powersupply is a 550W Mushkin

This stupid computer now bluescreens on its own and when it comes back up, it either cant load the video card(device manager should could not load drivers) or the other times i cant load the soundcard(same message). somehow when i reboot everything seems to be fixed after this until it bluescreens again. .

 

[Denithor]

Ouchies...you replaced the motherboard already?

Pulling the 4-pin power plug from the motherboard doesn't fix the problem and doesn't indicate the PSU is bad, all it does is completely prevent the system from booting properly (motherboard requires the power that plug provides to run).

So you did a full hdd wipe & clean reinstall and now you've got BSOD problems? You installed the latest drivers for everything, right? Especially your video card drivers (not what's on the disk, download from nVidia website) because you seem to be having problems there specifically.

 

[Young Grasshopper]

ran memtest and came up with a bunch of error. removed 2 mem sticks and no more crashes, computer reboots fine now too. ill be buying replacement memory thanks.