PC caught in reboot cycle

[Ford_Jam]

This started happening this past weekend,
I went to turn on my computer and found that it will not boot up properly when I first press the power button.
What does happen is that it seems to get caught in a reboot cycle where the fans start spinning, lights turn on and after about 10-15 seconds everything shuts down again and repeats by itself. No signal is being sent to the monitor (eg. it stays on standby) and the usual *beep* coming from the computer doesn't sound off.

Computer is about 24ish months old, from Dell and has no recent hardware changes.

I manage to get it to turn on properly by continually pressing the power button, but it takes longer everytime and I don't want to reach the point where it doesn't work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Gore]

If you have any extra hardware components, try change them one at a time and boot between every change of hardware. If you have more than 1 block of RAM, try remove one of them and see if it helps.

[hx.bjoffe]

Had the same problem recently, or this was one of the many problems that occured, when what i think was a CPU-socket malfunction in my (~)5 year old computer.
Do you ever reach the Windows boot screen?
If no, it's definitly a hardware problem.
If yes, it's most likely not so bad.

[LT Harrison=ORA=]

Could be a couple of things:

1. RAM try booting with just 1 stick at a time until it enters reboot cycle, if all RAM work go to step 2

2. If you are using Vista, unhook any vRAM device like cell phones, mem sticks, if that don't work go to step 3

3. BIOS changes? Run through your BIOS to make sure your setting are correct, may want to look at BOOT order. If thats not it go to step 4

4. Run Windows disk check from the OS disk, make sure your HDD is ok.

5. If one of the above fix the problem and you are able to access the OS, go HERE for 32bit system or HERE for 64bit, and get one of the stress test programs and run it for 2 hrs or a problem shows up. It will tell you.

6. If all else is ok, reformat your HDD and load OS. Pain in the butt but gives you a fresh start.

[smart_boy00]

What is the model of the dell?

Failing on start hmmm..

---does it post? (get past the DELL screen)

---is there red lights on the front bottom by the power button? or is the power button red?

---Make sure the power converter switch (little red up and down or left to right switch) is set to the correct voltage for your country.

Like the other guy said, try taking out one stick of memory if you have more than one. Your profile says you are running Windows 2000 so you should be able to start with a min of 64 MB so you should be ok with only one stick. If it happens again with one stick move the ram to another location and try again. if failed again try another stick in same slot.

IMO, something on your PC is not right, could be any component and by the time you take it to GEEK Squad (if you cant work on PC's yourself) or by the time you buy components and pay with it and take up hours and hours and maybe more than a week of time you could have just bought a new motherboard, CPU, ram and called it good. Buying all three of those will run about $200 on budget up to $500 if you get crazy.

[05grottim]

hmmm i had this problem with a new build. It just kept going round in circles. The way i fixed it was to put in the windows disc and just reinstall the OS- that should fix it. As others have said it could be the RAM so you should just test one stick but when i had this problem i reinstalled the OS and it seemed to work fine.

[Ford_Jam]

Sorry for disappearing!

I've found that only pressing the power button once will eventually turn on the computer.
After pressing it, the fans speed up twice, then on the third time the computer will start, without fail, without any extra input from myself.
Would like to include that once the computer is actually booted up, everything works fine, PR works, msn works Windows works. There is nothing out of the ordinary aside from the time it takes to boot up. I'm just worried that it may be showing symptoms of faulty hardware.

Edit: Sorry smart boy, I'm running XP sp3, I didn't realize my profile said that.

[Mr.Hyde]

Does it ever reboot by itself after windows is loaded?

[VoXiNaTiOn]

Stupid question, have you tried clearing your CMOS?

[UK_Force]

Here is another one then to answer

My wifes computer, is running XP, and is quite old.

It boots up just fine every time no problems.

When she goes to shut it down, it does a restart, and does not close down.

This happens EVERY time.

I have cleared the CMOS, reset the Bios to default set up etc, but no joy ?




.

[Mr.Hyde]

All of these problems sound like electrical shorts. If you've messed around in your case, chances are pretty good you've got a short.
I had one where I could just touch the power button, not press it, and it would turn on. The problem was a dangling molex connector touching the bottom of my case.

[VoXiNaTiOn]

Has she got Roxio/Adeptec Easy CD / Direct CD software installed on the PC UKF? That has been known to cause some problems when shutting down.



Windows re-boots in the event of a system failure, so that can be easily disabled.



(I'm doing this in Vista, but I'll try my best to guess what the way in XP would be)

Right click My Computer, go to properties > Advanced tab > Startup and recovery > Settings

Untick the "Automatically restart" option.


Now try turning the PC off.

[LT Harrison=ORA=]

Sorry for disappearing!

I've found that only pressing the power button once will eventually turn on the computer.
After pressing it, the fans speed up twice, then on the third time the computer will start, without fail, without any extra input from myself.
Would like to include that once the computer is actually booted up, everything works fine, PR works, msn works Windows works. There is nothing out of the ordinary aside from the time it takes to boot up. I'm just worried that it may be showing symptoms of faulty hardware.

Edit: Sorry smart boy, I'm running XP sp3, I didn't realize my profile said that.

This sounds like a failing power supply, do you know how to test it? If not, take it to a shop that can. You may need to replace it.

[LT Harrison=ORA=]

Here is another one then to answer

My wifes computer, is running XP, and is quite old.

It boots up just fine every time no problems.

When she goes to shut it down, it does a restart, and does not close down.

This happens EVERY time.

I have cleared the CMOS, reset the Bios to default set up etc, but no joy ?




.

You say it's OLD... How long has it been since you defrag the HD? And defrag/clean the registry? If it hasn't been too long then you may want to reformat and start from scratch. That would take less time than trying to troubleshoot and gives you a clean slate. When I used XP, I had to do that once or twice a year. Just remember to back up all personal files/pics/docs first. Then reload programs. Just my opinion.

Oh, AND TURN WINDOWS AUTO-UPDATER OFF!!! That **** will corrupt your OS beleive it or not. Wait for service packs or if you have trouble with certain programs, search the update list for that particular update and just DL that one. Trust me, you will be alot better off, unless you know what your looking at in the update list. Then just DL the ones that pertain to your system functions.