HELP! AFTER STORM COMPUTER KEEPS RESTRTING, WONT BOOT UP!

[foopammy]

OK, I don't know the lingo so talk to me like I am a stupid num nuts with suggestions, I have a year old gateway, with windows XP, windstorm knocked the power out at my house at night while my computer was in sleep mode, now all it does when I power up is keep restarting, over and over, up to three hours once, I dont want to pay the arm and leg gateway wants because I usually fix my computer problems alone, but this one is puzzling me, I tried using the windoxs XP recovery cd it just reinstalled and when it was done went to start up and you guessed it, just kept restarting, I dont know what storms or power surges do to computers, but I have a feeling you guys do HELP! any suggestions are needed, and apreciated! emensly!

no i dindt have a surge protector on my power strip

 

[Richard98]

My guess would be that you have a bad power supply

 

[foopammy]

how do I go about fixing that???

 

[Matthias99]

You... get a new power supply. Gateway should be able to send you one that will fit your computer. Replacing it is very easy.

 

[cainsdive]

Yup. And make sure it's a gateway power supply, cause only there's will work in yours- no kidding. It's proprietary.:beer:

 

[foopammy]

oh ok I checked ebay and they have gateway power supplys , trying to save dough ya know, but they are all different watts and crap, i tried to search the gateway site to see what type of power supply mine has but nothing, so can i use any gateway power supply do ya think?

 

[Black88GTA]

Just look at the power supply in your case now, read the wattage off of it, and get one with equal or higher wattage. Too much wattage won't hurt it, as the PC only draws the power it needs, but too low of a wattage rating can cause problems.

 

[imported_Phil]

Um, it may not be the PSU. I've seen systems that do this because the modem is faulty, usually as a consequence of storms in the vicinity the night before. Removing the modem makes the system work perfectly. Remove everything that is not essential to start the PC up - leave the processor, RAM, a hard disk, graphics card. See if that does it.

If so, add things back in one at a time until it stops. Voila, faulty part found.

 

[xSauronx]

i agree with DopeFiend

try from the basics and add parts, theres a chance something got fried and not the psu. good luck fixing it

 

[Mutilator]

I'm gonna have to say it's probably not a hardware problem... instead his system is simply bluescreening on startup. By default the system will automatically restart after a bluescreen... unfortunately that means there's no way (that I know of) to see what the error message is. If it was a hardware problem, especially the power supply, then he wouldn't have been able to keep the PC on long enough to repair/reinstall XP. I had a similar problem with a PC here at work last week... nothing I tried seemed to work including using the recovery console and running fixboot and fixmbr or using the XP repair procedure. I believe I ended up fdisking the system and mbr and reinstalling from scratch.

 

[mbackof]

I just worked on a system that was doing the same thing. I had to reinstall XP Pro. I used the same destination folder and it came up fine.

 

[imported_Phil]

Thinking about it a bit more, if the PSU is fried, then surely it should be cutting-out on startup, where the most power drain is done? Even if it's flaky, it should be cutting out way before going into Windows.

I reckon an XP Repair from the CD is needed.

 

[snidy1]

Originally posted by: DopeFiend
Thinking about it a bit more, if the PSU is fried, then surely it should be cutting-out on startup, where the most power drain is done? Even if it's flaky, it should be cutting out way before going into Windows.

I reckon an XP Repair from the CD is needed.

A faulty power supply could cause that, and I think it probably is the problem

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: foopammy
OK, I don't know the lingo so talk to me like I am a stupid num nuts with suggestions, I have a year old gateway, with windows XP, windstorm knocked the power out at my house at night while my computer was in sleep mode, now all it does when I power up is keep restarting, over and over, up to three hours once, I dont want to pay the arm and leg gateway wants because I usually fix my computer problems alone, but this one is puzzling me, I tried using the windoxs XP recovery cd it just reinstalled and when it was done went to start up and you guessed it, just kept restarting, I dont know what storms or power surges do to computers, but I have a feeling you guys do HELP! any suggestions are needed, and apreciated! emensly!

no i dindt have a surge protector on my power strip

When exactly is it Restarting? At the opening screen or when Windows is loading?

If it's while Windows is loading, try booting into Safe Mode. I'd also checkout your BIOS settings, they may have been reset.

 

[Nemesis300]

I recently fixed a gateway essentials 933C that would not boot after power outage. The computer would not start up at all. I had an old power supply lying around so I hooked it up and the computer booted up fine. Now that I knew the power supply was the problem I had to order a new one. Trying to save the person some money I ordered one on ebay. When it finally came I hooked it up and it booted the computer all the way to WinXP then would always just restart by itself. Thus I came to conclusion that I had been sent a defective power supply. I decided to just call gateway and order a new power supply through them since I was fed up with Ebay. They sent me the power supply and it worked fine. So you see here is your answer and a lesson learned by me so you wont have to go through what I went through.


1) You need a new power supply.

2) Don't order one off ebay, because it could not work and the gateway one is prolly only $10 more.

I hate ebay!

 

[imported_Phil]

1) You need a new power supply.

I disagree. Until it's known what is causing the problem, replacing parts isn't going to get him anywhere.

 

[BG4533]

Originally posted by: cainsdive
Yup. And make sure it's a gateway power supply, cause only there's will work in yours- no kidding. It's proprietary.:beer:

You sure they are proprietary? I was under the impression that most Gateways were standard. I know Dell is proprietary.

Originally posted by: DopeFiend
Thinking about it a bit more, if the PSU is fried, then surely it should be cutting-out on startup, where the most power drain is done? Even if it's flaky, it should be cutting out way before going into Windows.

Seems logical, but I have seem PSUs do all sorts of things. Maybe something in it is damaged and it restarts at a certain temperature or something.


If it is making it through a full reinstall the PSU is probably ok. Try removing parts like people said. Did you do a clean install or just try to recover? You might need to do a full reinstall.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: DopeFiend

1) You need a new power supply.

I disagree. Until it's known what is causing the problem, replacing parts isn't going to get him anywhere.

It doesn't hurt to try and fire it up with another Power Supply. Rules out the Motherboard not getting enough or clean power. A Bad switching Power supply can send a motherboard some nasty looking power.

Since the failure occured after a storm there could've been some nasty electrical spikes that damaged the Power Supply. Someone also mentioned the Modem. If the Modem is not on board the Motherboard, he should remove it. Modems get zapped all the time, you're lucky if it doesn't take out the Motherboard too but that happens quite a bit too.

 

[imported_Phil]

dmcowen674: re the modem, that was me- I've seen that many many times before. This guy really should bare-board the machine to see if it's okay.

 

[foxkm]

OK I think most people here are off Kilter.

1. Its not a PSU issue as that is the case in like 1 out of ever 1000 lightning damaged systems. This is obvious cause the computer is just dead, no power, even after the modem is pulled.

2. If it was a fried modem, you would experience the following:
a. The computer would just not turn on at all. - Pull modem and see if machine posts.
b. The computer would work fine, just when you go to dial out, you get a no dial tone error cause the relay usually gets fried on the modem
c. The computer would boot up, just there would be an exclimation on the device in Device Manager saying the device can't start.

3. Since his computer was on during the storm, and the system crashes during bootup, most likey his FILE SYSTEM is corrupt. Trying to do a repair install
in XP will most likely FAIL cause the file system will still be screwed up. Here are some things to try in this situation:
a. Remove the drive from the machine, stick it in another XP machine, run Norton Disk Doctor or another filesystem repair utility. Can try chkdsk, but very
poor app.
b. If you can mount the Image, COPY all data off and format the drive with the F***d file system. Then copy data back to hard drive if available. Stick
it back in the machine and do a Repair Install from that.. That should get you 95% of the way home.

foxkm

 

[Regs]

Parts to try to replace in order:

Modem, if you use a dial up connection (And yes, the computer will still boot up on a fried modem, happen to me on WinME )--or--
Netword Card

PSU
Video Card
Ram
Motherboard

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: foxkm
OK I think most people here are off Kilter.

1. Its not a PSU issue as that is the case in like 1 out of ever 1000 lightning damaged systems. This is obvious cause the computer is just dead, no power, even after the modem is pulled.

2. If it was a fried modem, you would experience the following:
a. The computer would just not turn on at all. - Pull modem and see if machine posts.
b. The computer would work fine, just when you go to dial out, you get a no dial tone error cause the relay usually gets fried on the modem
c. The computer would boot up, just there would be an exclimation on the device in Device Manager saying the device can't start.

3. Since his computer was on during the storm, and the system crashes during bootup, most likey his FILE SYSTEM is corrupt. Trying to do a repair install
in XP will most likely FAIL cause the file system will still be screwed up. Here are some things to try in this situation:
a. Remove the drive from the machine, stick it in another XP machine, run Norton Disk Doctor or another filesystem repair utility. Can try chkdsk, but very
poor app.
b. If you can mount the Image, COPY all data off and format the drive with the F***d file system. Then copy data back to hard drive if available. Stick
it back in the machine and do a Repair Install from that.. That should get you 95% of the way home.

foxkm

Could be, I'd try a Fdisk/mbr(I believe that's the proper syntax) to see if that fixes it.

 

[imported_Phil]

Could be, I'd try a Fdisk/mbr(I believe that's the proper syntax) to see if that fixes it.

For 9x, maybe. For 2000/XP, it's "fixmbr" and "fixboot". But that won't really do much in this case if the PC will boot but resets or restarts at some point.

 

[buckmasterson]

I'd still try removing the modem, and any other PCI device before I'd buy a power supply. Windows XP tends to act differently than the other OS's when it comes to a bad device. In 98SE the bachine wouldn't boot, but with XP I'd bet it would try like hell, then restart.

 

[foxkm]

Well, would have to say that since his machine is starting to boot, fdisk /mbr won't do anything. the MBR is fine if the XP logo screen is actually loading.
I serously believe that he has a corrupt file system. I have been doing this way to long to believe that a modem is causing windows XP to reboot on startup.
I had the same problem with my mothers machine a month ago where it would blue screen on start up and reboot. I fixed it by scanning the file system and repairing file system errors and then doing a repair instal..
Good luck