Laptop rebooting on Windows Install......

Hiya all,

I have been taking a look at a laptop for a friend that keeps on reboooting itself upon installing Windows. I have tried a few different disks and OS versions and it seems to do the same sort of thing with each one. I have tried a diferent HDD that I have hanging about and it still does the same thing with this HDD installed as well (as far as I know this is a working hdd! )
It usually reboots itself at the device installation stage of windows install. I have managed to get it to install xp succesfully once but then it intermittantly rebooting itself on the windows load screen.

I have reseated the Ram and placed in another slot, and cleaned out fluff from the hsf (in case it was caused by heat) and I have reseated the CDRW drive in the lappy.
I am now starting to run out of ideas and I have no more Laptop spare-parts so I am wondering what other things you guys would try, to minimise the risk of me getting the wrong replacement component.

Possibilities here I reckon are:

Memory: I have run Memtest for a couple of hours but no longer tbh.

HDD: Tried a different HDD in it and it shows the same issues (as far as I know this HDD is sound)

Optical Drive: I don't have one to try unfortunatly but it has no audible probs and appears to read all types of disks I have thrown at it....

So if anyone has any idea what might be causing this then any suggestions would be much appreciated as I am pulling mi hair out at the moment.

Cheers in Advance

Simon

have u tried checking for a bios update, I would suggest clearing the cmos but on lappies thats always a pain in the ass so upgrade or reinstall current bios. Out of interest if u turn on the lappy and go into the bios and leave it, will it reset, this may confirm a hardware issue such as heat, does the fan still run

NOTE - Try leaving in bios for a while first, if the lappy resets while updating the bios u could have a new paperweight on ur hands so take appropriate care, if ur not sure then get it checked out by someone who is (and more importantly may be insured if it goes pete tong)

Personally I would go with the clear CMOS idea... Might be a pain but it is the going to be the quickest and easiest potential fix...

You could try other things like bootable WIN XP CD's / Linux boot CD's and see if they crash or not...