New/old headache...

Well, what I thought I had fixed in my brother-in-law's computer has now returned with a vengence. It keeps rebooting, over and over. This is with a fresh install of Windows. Virus scans turn up nothing and spyware scans only turn up tracking cookies. The above problem is what prompted me to fix his computer in the first place. It has been taken to the shop and they replaced the motherboard, but as you can see, the MB wasn't the issue. Temps are fine and I have set it so that when it restarts it throws up the error instead of just restarting. Problem is, it hasn't acted up since doing that... lol! It's a very random thing. Some times however it doesn't get past the screen in the boot-up process that has the "press delete to enter setup".

I have noticed however that it pops up some box at random times that says you need to download some reg fix program. There are a couple different boxes and programs it refers to. It says that windows has corrupt registry entries or something like that. I have never seen anythng like it before and it popped it up with the fresh install of windows and reformat. I think within 2 minutes of being back from installing windows it popped up.

I am frustrated as I don't know what to look at next. the shop also tested the ram and he said it was working fine.

 

Do you have another power supply to try? psu"s will do this. I think you also have some spyware, adware, malware, on that pc, the old error box with the download fix is the give away. ed

 

I wish I did have another power supply to try. The one that is in there now is one of my old ones, because whatever happened a month and half ago, fried the PS as well.

I thought it may have been something malware related too, but it popped up after a reformat and fresh install of XP. All I did was go to the windows update link in help and support off the start button and it popped up. I went no where else, but there in the first couple minutes of it being booted up.

This whole thing is just frustrating!

 

To my knowldge windows has no error box that tells you to download anything, did you install anything that was from a download and then burnt to a disk? ed

 

Only thing that I burned to a disk were documents from my documents that he wanted saved. They haven't been put back onto the computer as of yet. I guess, I will have to reformat it again and start from scratch.

 

I think that would be your best bet, do the slow format, not the quick one, takes awhile but it is the best. Good Luck, and let us know how it plays out. ed

 

Will do! I did the slw format last time, took about an hour to do, he has a 150+ GB HDD. Hell, I even tried a chkdsk and it restarted in the middle of that as well. I was trying to see if the HDD was bad.

 

My first guess would also be the power supply.

This is a common symptom of a faulty PSU.

If you have a store like comp usa near by, then go get a quality 400w or higher psu and pay for the one year return guarantee.
If that's not the problem then you can always return it but you will loose the cost of the one year warranty which is about $8.00 dollars I think.

If a full reformat isn't solving the problem then it's most likely a hardware issue, and the psu would be the likely culprit.

 

Well, a new interesting plot development! I couldn't even do the reformat with out restarting. It wouldn't get past the checking hardware configuration at times when I had it set to boot from cd-rom, and at other times wouldn't get past the press delete screen. So I tried something, I went in and reset the bios to fail safe settings and it booted right up.

This is a new motherboard, can there be something wrong with the bios or bios chip?

Nevermind, as I am typing this, it just restarted again on me. At least this time it got to the desktop before doing it. It wouldn't load out of bios before hand.

 

In the several times I've had that problem it always turn out to be a bad mother board. I will say it is worth trying a known good power supply. Did you also say it reboots during format? I tend to go with kits that include board processor and memory. That way all bases are covered. But absolutely try a PS first.

 

Okay, I have a power supply finally ordered for the computer.

If it's not the PSU, what else could it be? Don't forget it's a brand new motherboard already.

 

Hi, Lone. An idea, here. Yes, I actually do have one, sometimes. Anyway, I had a situation once with XP Home on one machine...if you ever rebooted into safe mode one time, it would get hung up in a rebooting loop to beat hell...the machine would only run Pro without doing it. Good night and good luck.