XP in re-boot loop...

[Nick]

Reet, got Honoops PC here, trying to fix the damn thing and I've got to admit, I'm stuck...

The basic problem is it won't boot into XP, though you can get as far as the XP start-up screen sometimes... or sometimes not..

I can access BIOS no probs, POST is fine and I've been in a reset to safe defaults etc etc... no joy.

Going into safe mode is a bit hit and miss too, sometimes it will, sometimes it won't...

Its just booted into XP now, but as soon as I tried to run AVG it dropped out and rebooted, only to fail the reboot several times before just giving up with a blank screen and the happy little "I'm b0rked" cursor, top left.

IN safe mode things are no better... I can browse the drives, open files etc but if I try and run anything it closes down and re-boots...

She's just got herself a TFT and these troubles started shortly after, so I thought it might be some sort of display conflict, like an incorrect res or something, but it appears not...

I've doen the usual stuff like giving all the connections inside a good wiggle, popping everything through the dishwasher to make sure its all clean, I've re-seated the memory in each of the three different slots and reseated the GFX. CPU temps are a cool 29 degrees and case temps are 24, so it ain't that.

Basically, apart from starting over, stripping it all out (which I've practically done) and rebuilding, I'm confobulated as to what's wrong.... soooo

HELP!

ps. I was joking about the dishwasher...

[Lee H]

Are the voltages and clockspeeds at stock levels as I have a system here that does as above if you increase the FSB even by 1 MHz.

Best thing I can suggest you try is getting into safe mode and restoring to the point before the monitor was added ( even though I cannot see a simple driver for a TFT causing an issue...although this is windows we are discussing afterall )

Are there any other cards in the system and if so have you played PCI shuffle as this usually works for me when the audigy2 wants to be a PITA.

[Firelord]

Might be worth running a repair install of XP to set everything back to default and replaces corrupts/missing sys files

Try loading bios defaults if you haven't tried that

to check for virus's whip the HDD out and connect to your system and scan from your OS using your AV software. Then check for spyware too in a similar fashion. Have fixed many a windows boot problem like that!

[Nick]

Wild, yeah, I've knocked it all back to stock though it was an o/c'd 1700 running at 2400xp speeds. It was stable as a brick like that... a night's IL2 on it proved that... plus I thrashed the bum off it with 3DMark straight after building it. Tried restoring back and the 'use last working config' option from the XP boot selection, all to no avail. I've even uninstalled the GFX card so it runs in pure VGA mode... no joy again.

There's no other cards in there as its running on an ABIT AN7, makikng use of onboard sound, NIC etc.

Firelord, yeah, already knocked everything back to stock... hesitant at this stage for a repair job as I don't have Honoops XP disk or key...

I'm not so sure it's viral now as other than the reboot, it seems that it wants to crash when the memory has to do some work... I'm starting to suspect either the mobo or the memory...

I'm going to threaten each in tunr with a hammer and see if that helps... it seems to work when the photocopier jams...

[Firelord]

Download Memtest 86 and run through 4hrs plus of loops with stress test and that will test mem and mem controller

[Nick]

You know what? I'm wondering if it could be a PSU problem.... its got a generic unbranded PSU in there, might be that... could be time to swap out PSUs and see what gives...

[Firelord]

did you get a chance to swap the PSU?

[directhex]

boot knoppix, see if that's fine

[Nick]

Nah, am back at work today, so I won't be able to have a look at it until tonight... prolly have to go buy a PSU as I don't have a spare hanging about and I'm not gonna strip the one in my rig out as I've spent hours routing the wiring all over for a tidy case...

Hex, what's Knoppix?

[0iD]

http://www.knoppix.org/
It's a live linux CD. For when you dont want to install Linux but want to try it. Handy for delving into b0rkd Windoze systems.

Many different flavours available http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

[directhex]

bootable linux cd, burn it, shove it in, will let you see whether it's a windows problem or a hardware problem

[GAteKeeper]

http://www.knoppix.org/

its a full linux distro that boots 100% from a CD (except for user creted files and some configs) so you can run it without disturbing a windoze install.

GK

[Rave]

I was going to suggest that it sounded like a leaky cap problem but with an AN7 that shouldn't be an issue- Abit make a point of using only Japanese caps after all the problems they had with dodgy Taiwanese ones. Power supply sounds most likely to me.

Rich :¬)

[yamangman]

Next time you manage to boot it up, turn off auto retstart, if you havn't done so already, and see if a BSOD is displayed.

[Nick]

Cheers for the replies chaps.

Yamang, did that... it just rebooted as normal, no BSOD... could this mean something?

[Firelord]

Sounds like a PSU prob for sure... replace the PSU and see how you get on ohhh check if you can the voltages on current PSU with a multimeter