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Windows won't load...keeps rebooting before loading.....please help!!!

R

rikilii

Member
Short Story: My computer will not load Windows. It boots to the Windows mode selection screen, and regardless of which mode I pick, including safe mode, it immediately reboots.

Details:

I was surfing the internet in Opera, when I noticed a strange bug. A pull down menu would appear every time I left clicked anywhere in the window, except on the menu bar. I later noticed a similar, but less invasive problem in IE, which seemed to be associated with sites with banner ads. The pull down menu would appear when the page loaded, but would go away if I clicked anywhere on the page, except if I clicked on a banner ad, and the menu would reappear.

At this point, I ran a virus scan with McAfee, which came up blank. I also installed some Windows updates that were waiting to be installed. Finally, still thinking that I might have picked up a virus, I checked my process list, and ended one or two that I did not recognize, and for which I could not find any information on Google. None of these things solved the problem.

I then noticed that the behavior mostly disappeared if I held down my ALT key. So I figured it might be a problem with my wireless keyboard. I pulled out the batteries to change them, and then decided just to try a regular PS/2 keyboard I had laying around. That's when I noticed that the keyboard was already plugged in from a prior trouble-shooting session. So I decided to totally disconnect my wireless setup and add a USB mouse, and reboot. I also later noted (after rebooting) that the secondary keyboard might have been disturbed such that one if its keys might have been depressed, possibly causing the problem to begin with.

Anyway, after shut down and restarted my computer with just the PS/2 KB and USB wired mouse, my computer loaded to the XP login screen where it asks you to select the login profile, and after I clicked on my profile, it froze at the point where it said it was "loading personal settings".

So I manually powered the machine down, and rebooted. This time (and every time thereafter, it got as far as asking what Windows mode I want to boot in. Each time I make a selection, it causes the computer to reboot. I have tried all the choices, including safe mode. It will not load Windows in any one of them.

I have tested each memory stick individually, and verified that all fans are running and that no MB lights are on when the computer reaches the Windows mode selection screen.

I have also attempted a repair installation of Windows twice. The first time, the setup program got about halfway through checking the files on the hard drive before the system rebooted itself. The second time, it started with the file check, got past it, and then crashed sometime while or after it was copying files for the installation.

I have also checked the temperatures in the BIOS, and all appear to be reasonable. Incidentally, the PS/2 KB functions properly in the bios, in the recovery console and in the Windows mode selection screen.

My relevant hardware is as follows:
DFI LanParty Ultra-D
OCZ Gold 2x512 (the 2-2-2-5 stuff)
A64 3200+
Leadtek 7800GTX
PSU: ENERMAX Whisper II EG565P-VE FMA(24P) ATX12V 535W Power Supply 90V~135V or 90V~265V UL, cUL, TUV, CB - Retail
HD: Seagate Barracuda 250gb ATA150 drive

All HW is about a year old.

It's all running stock, no overclocking.


Anyone have any troubleshooting suggestions?

PS: Thanks for all the suggestions so far!
 
umm, did you try to put back the mouse and keyboard to see if maybe the new ones are damaged in some way? how about a live CD. try that and see if that works. maybe reinstall windows?
 
Did you try plugging in one at a time in succession to see which one is giving the problems?
Try going back to the original setup and see if the problem goes away?
 
I'm using a regular keyboard in place of my wireless setup.

It works fine in the Bios screens.

The problem is that I can't get past the Windows mode selection screen.

If I attempt to run a new Windows installation, the computer still crashes. This is why I suspect that it is hardware related.

I have tried running on one memory stick at a time, still now luck.

It might be my hard drive, so I'm thinking about getting a USB enclosure and seeing if it works when plugged into my laptop.
 
By the way, here's exactly what was happening with my keyboard that led me to all this mess:

I was in Opera, and at some point in my web-browsing, the program ran into an apparent bug where every time I left-clicked anywhere in the interface, I would get a pull down menu similar to a right-click pull down menu.

I also had this problem to a lesser extent in Explorer, but it only appeared to be associated with banner ads and Macromedia.

Then I noticed that the problem would stop if I held down my Alt key. This led me to believe that something might be wrong with my wireless keyboard (e.g. batteries might be going dead), so I decided to test it out with new batteries. After putting batteries in, I had trouble getting it reconnected, so I decided to disconnect my wireless mouse and keyboard and test everything out with a PS/2 KB and a USB mouse, and I wanted to do it with a fresh reboot.

When I went to reach for my regular keyboard, I noticed that it was already plugged in, and it might have shifted so that it was leaning against something that was depressing one of its keys.

Anyway, I had already disconnected my wireless desktop and taken out the batteries, so I decided to reboot with the regular devices. This reboot is when everything went to heck.
 
Originally posted by: lamere
Did you try plugging in one at a time in succession to see which one is giving the problems?
Try going back to the original setup and see if the problem goes away?
Click to expand...

No, haven't tried that yet, but the PS/2 KB seems to be working fine in the bios screens. I'll try to boot again this evening with the exact same set of equipment plugged in, which would include the wireless kb/mouse and my PS/2 KB.
 
There are reports of bad PSUs causing this- my parents have a computer where the PSU began acting flaky on and off- would shut the system completely down anywhere from thirty seconds to fifteen minutes after powering on. This was on and off for a few months. Then, last week the PC started displaying identical symptoms to yours- able to boot into BIOS, but endless auto-rebooting at the Windows screen, along with an inability to complete a repair install.

A google search shows that others have had similar issues, and often the PSU was to blame. In my parent's case, I know that the HDD, GPU, RAM, or CPU are not to blame, as I personally tested these components out when I visited a little while back. That leaves the mobo and PSU as culprits. It could be mobo related, but given the past random shutdowns, I suspect the PSU.

I am planning to switch their PSU out with a new model, which hopefully will resolve the rebooting- as your symptoms are pretty much identical, I would look to the PSU as well.
 
Check your cpu temps in the bios. Had a friends pc doing weird things like this and it turned out one corner of the plastic clip that holds the heatsink on his P4 had cracked and the heatsink wasn't seated properly. Only way I noticed it was I was pushing down on the sink to make sure it was on there snug while I was watching the cpu temp and as soon as I put a little pressure on it, the temps would drop by like 10C.
Could also be a bad power supply. Take a voltmeter and check your 5v and 12v rails using a 3 pin molex while the pc is on. Any large deviations below 5v or 12v and you're power supply is probbably toast.
Another easy thing to do is look for burst or bulging capacitors on the motherboard. I have a couple old AMD slot A boards that both have popped caps and started randomly freezing and acting up recently. Good luck, hope this helps.
 
Originally posted by: rikilii
I was doing fine, when I decided to reboot with a different mouse and keyboard, because I was having problems with my wireless setup.

When I tried to reboot, my computer loaded to the xp login screen where it asks you to select the login profile, and after I clicked on my profile, it froze at the point where it said it was "loading personal settings".

So I hard rebooted, and it got as far as asking what Windows mode I want to boot in. Each time I make a selection, it causes the computer to reboot. I have tried all the choices, including safe mod. It will not load Windows in any one of them.

I have tested each memory stick individually, and verified that all fans are running. I also note that I attempted to run a Windows installation, and the setup program got about halfway through checking the files on the hard drive before the system rebooted itself.

My hardware is as follows:
DFI LanParty Ultra-D
OCZ Gold 2x512 (the 2-2-2-5 stuff)
A64 3200+
Leadtek 7800GTX

It's all running stock, no overclocking.


Anyone have any troubleshooting suggestions?
Click to expand...

Exactly when did you try reinstalling windows? BEFORE the problem or AFTER?

At the boot selection sreen, no matter what you select (safe mode, normal, etc) just causes the machine to reboot again?

 
Originally posted by: AMCRambler
Check your cpu temps in the bios. Had a friends pc doing weird things like this and it turned out one corner of the plastic clip that holds the heatsink on his P4 had cracked and the heatsink wasn't seated properly. Only way I noticed it was I was pushing down on the sink to make sure it was on there snug while I was watching the cpu temp and as soon as I put a little pressure on it, the temps would drop by like 10C.
Could also be a bad power supply. Take a voltmeter and check your 5v and 12v rails using a 3 pin molex while the pc is on. Any large deviations below 5v or 12v and you're power supply is probbably toast.
Another easy thing to do is look for burst or bulging capacitors on the motherboard. I have a couple old AMD slot A boards that both have popped caps and started randomly freezing and acting up recently. Good luck, hope this helps.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response.

I checked the temps in the Bios, and while my running temps have never been stellar, nothing was significantly out of whack. Everything was at or below 50C.
 
Originally posted by: kungfoo
Originally posted by: rikilii
I was doing fine, when I decided to reboot with a different mouse and keyboard, because I was having problems with my wireless setup.

When I tried to reboot, my computer loaded to the xp login screen where it asks you to select the login profile, and after I clicked on my profile, it froze at the point where it said it was "loading personal settings".

So I hard rebooted, and it got as far as asking what Windows mode I want to boot in. Each time I make a selection, it causes the computer to reboot. I have tried all the choices, including safe mod. It will not load Windows in any one of them.

I have tested each memory stick individually, and verified that all fans are running. I also note that I attempted to run a Windows installation, and the setup program got about halfway through checking the files on the hard drive before the system rebooted itself.

My hardware is as follows:
DFI LanParty Ultra-D
OCZ Gold 2x512 (the 2-2-2-5 stuff)
A64 3200+
Leadtek 7800GTX

It's all running stock, no overclocking.


Anyone have any troubleshooting suggestions?
Click to expand...

Exactly when did you try reinstalling windows? BEFORE the problem or AFTER?

At the boot selection sreen, no matter what you select (safe mode, normal, etc) just causes the machine to reboot again?
Click to expand...

I only resorted to the Windows CD when the machine failed entirely to load Windows, so it was after the problem started.

And you are correct. No matter what I select, the machine will immediately reboot. If I boot off the CD, it will start running Windows setup, but will eventually reboot again. I have only tried it 2 times, and I'm pretty sure it rebooted at different times. The first time was when it was checking the files on the HD, and the second time was when it was copying files or sometime thereafter.
 
Very odd.

The last thing I did this morning was a failed attempt to do a repair installation.

I just got home from work, and turned on the computer, and it automatically launched right back into the setup process.....I didn't even tell the machine to boot from the CD.

So I waited for it to finish, and now the computer is running fine, with all my files, and almost all of my settings intact.

Go figure.
 
Sounds like perhaps some files got corrupted or maybe a bad driver install. You might want to run a surface scan of your hard disk just to make sure there aren't any bad sectors. If the drive is crashing it would be preferable to have it still functional so you can copy files over to a new hard disk.
 
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