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Reboot just as windows starts

aphex

aphex

Moderator<br>All Things Apple
Moderator
Friend has XP Pro on his 1-2 year old rig...

Boots just fine, until where the screen usually flickers just as windows starts... The screen flickers and the whole system reboots...

He can get into safe mode just fine.

Unplugged nearly everything except the essentials, same problem.

Any ideas?
 
I'd start with Memtest 86+ and with the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics program. It never hurts to get the basics out of the way. A failing memory module caused a rebooting loop on a friend's brand-new PC.
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
I'd start with Memtest 86+ and with the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics program. It never hurts to get the basics out of the way. A failing memory module caused a rebooting loop on a friend's brand-new PC.
Click to expand...

I'll let him know to give it a try. The system seems very stable though in safe mode, it just windows where its having trouble getting to. Could faulty memory be the prob?
 
Originally posted by: aphex
I'll let him know to give it a try. The system seems very stable though in safe mode, it just windows where its having trouble getting to. Could faulty memory be the prob?
Click to expand...
Who knows? 😱 I'd run the tests because they are easy, are common causes of such problems, and running them will eliminate two possible causes. You can also try out "Safe Mode WITH Networking" and see how that goes.
 
well he pulled one stick of ram and rebooted, the computer wont turn on, only the motherboard has a single light on, nothing is spinning up.

tried the other stick, same problem, wont turn on.

Any ideas? 🙁
 
Strike that, the dumbass unplugged his main power cable, it turns on now, but the original problem persists with both stick of ram trying to boot to windows. Tried one stick at a time, in each slot, same problem.

Gonna try memtest now with each one.
 
Could both sticks be fine and its the motherboard throwing the errors?
 
Forget about booting for now.

You're on the right track, we want to test each stick with memtest to determine whether one or the other is the culprit. When we have one known good stick of ram we can proceed further.

As to you motherboard question, yes it could be a bad slot as I said earlier. It can be a real PITA to determine which slot is bad. Time consuming. Just apply logic and you can work it out.

I might suggest you make sure you have the latest memtest. There are at least two sites with it an one has not been updated in a real long time. The other in a long time. 1.65 is the latest I've seen.
 
Well we tried each stick independantly in each slot:
Stick 1 in Slot 1
Stick 1 in Slot 2
Stick 2 in Slot 1
Stick 2 in Slot 2

All 4 times, the system almost made it to windows and then rebooted. So, would doing memtest at this point do anything? Even if one of the sticks was the culprit, shouldnt windows have booted when the bad one was out? or the bad slot wasnt being used?
 
Yes, I see your logic. But he could have two bad sticks.

You have errors related to memory. Get the latest version of memtest and check that out later on.

I would boot from the XP CD and enter the Recover Console. At the prompt type "chkdsk /r" (no quotes) and let it run. It may take a long while depending on how large the HD is. The /r will allow chkdsk to repair if possible. Try booting afterwards.
 
Originally posted by: boomerang
Yes, I see your logic. But he could have two bad sticks.

You have errors related to memory. Get the latest version of memtest and check that out later on.

I would boot from the XP CD and enter the Recover Console. At the prompt type "chkdsk /r" (no quotes) and let it run. It may take a long while depending on how large the HD is. The /r will allow chkdsk to repair if possible. Try booting afterwards.
Click to expand...

Yea, he ran that at first, it found one error and corrected it. He is running the latest version of memtest86+ now, we'll see what happens.
 
Some thoughts;

Is he overclocking? If so, stop for troubleshooting. Throttle back to default settings.

RebateMonger's suggestions were good ones. Running the drive manufacturers diagnostic is still a good idea. His first two steps are also my first two steps.

Check for bad caps on the motherboard. Easy to do and may save a lot of diagnostic time.

Do you have another Power Supply you could swap in? If so, try that. I've had two systems with the exact symptoms you describe that were the result of a bad Power Supply. Both times running chkdsk allowed them to boot after replacing the PS..

Also, chkdsk saying it "repaired" something is a bit of a misnomer. What was on that portion of the HD that it "repaired". Perhaps something XP needs to boot? I'm betting yes. You could boot to safe mode and uninstall drivers one by one and see if it boots. You could also do a repair install. You'd most likely want SP2 slipstreamed into the XP CD for that option.

These are things to consider if you can get one stick to pass in one slot.
 
I've never seen Memtest results like yours before, with all failures at the base of the memory range. It could be a problem with the Cache memory, which would affect ALL memory slots and ANY memory stick.

I'd put a "known-good" memory module in a single slot. If THAT gives the same error, it may be time for a new CPU or motherboard.

You could also try running a Unix boot-CD, like Ubuntu, and see what happens.

Edit: There are two references to this specific error on the Memtest 86+ Forums:

Memtest Forums

Memtest Forums
 
ok, he has tried both sticks independantly in memtest, both threw errors

Now he is trying one of the failed sticks in the second slot, i'll report back shortly.
 
Ok, dosent matter the stick, dosent matter the slot, errors in memtest every time. Always at address 00000000000 as shown here; http://iiki.org/memtest.jpg but it fails different tests every time.

The system is not overclocked.

🙁
 
Yeah, he should probrably try another stick of ram that is known to be good or perhaps he should buy a new stick. One thing that can also be done is disable all non microsoft services and disable all startup items in safe mode using msconfig then try booting up. He could try a repair install but with errors in the ram that may not work either.
 
Ok, tried a brand new video card and ram, still no luck....

CPU/Mobo likely? Power Supply maybe?
 
I'd say mobo at this point.

In my experience a CPU is either good, or it's bad. Bad = no nothing.

IMO, nothing you can do is going to make this XP install boot normally. The damage has been done and you are only going to fix it by doing a repair install. If you swap motherboards you will end up doing that anyway, unless you find the exact same board or do a fresh install.

All troubleshooting at this point has been to try and get a stick of memory to pass memtest. Unsuccessfully so far. If you have a PS to swap in, go for it. See if it will then pass memtest. I'd say not, as I believe it's the motherboard.
 
Does he have it so it automatically reboots on a system failure? Under advanced system properties startup and recovery settings?
If he does it will just reboot without a blue screen. You can also check the system log for any past failures.
 
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