computer boots to the startup screen then reboots over and over again

[dragondave]

I have a Window 98 peer to peer network. The machine is a Micro PC with Intel Celeron 533Mhz processor, 128 Mbit Ram. The PC begins to bootup to the startup screen then begins to reboot. It will go up to the startup screen twice then stop. The hard is good and the CD rom is good. It won"t start with a startup disk. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[TedM]

Dave,

Basic troubleshooting comes to mind. I would suspect software first. What have you changed lately? Also, have you tried to boot into Safe Mode (Hold down F8 on startup) and choose the Step by Step option? This will allow you to see exactly what is happening that is causing your problems. Just hit enter for each line in the startup file until the machine starts to reboot and see which line it was that caused it. There will lie your problem. You may have to boot into Safe Mode again (Option 3) to correct the found problem(s).

I am a little concerned that something else may be going on, though, since you are unable to boot from a floppy. Have you tried disconnecting the HD and booting from floppy? You can usually do this from the BIOS by selecting NONE on the IDE device detection panel (Remember to turn it back to AUTO after finishing). Sometimes this works and sometimes not depending on the board and BIOS.

 

[denodave]

I SAW THIS IN A DIFFERENT SECTION OF THIS SITE. TRY LINK BELOW: IT IS ON THE "PC-HARDWARE GEN'L DISCUSSION" BOARD AND IS THE THIRD THREAD IF YOU SORT "BY TIPS FIRST"

Chris Burch(IS/IT--Manageme) Sep 2, 2001
I have recently had an intermittent problem where my PC starting rebooting itself. This could be at any stage of startup, or when the system was fully up and running. At times the PC was unusable because it kept rebooting, other times it was okay. Overall it drove me absolutely crazy.

I followed every tip I could find in this group, and across the entire site. Eventually I find found a post in an off-subject news group which advised that there was a problem with some Via chip sets in combination with PC133 Ram, and a pointer to

http://www.pcezine.ca/index2.htm

for a patch.

I applied the patch 5 days ago, and haven't had an unintended reboot since. As a bonus, some other niggly little problems also disappeared.

Tels (IS/IT--Manageme) Sep 3, 2001
Strangely enough, the exact same problem bumped me into replacing the whole PC!! I could never quite nail it down... Even stranger this is the only other reference to it I have seen!

The problems appeared in Windows 98, and then went away for a few months, when they appeared again I was using Win2k.

I think I triggered it when I added another 256M of SDRAM.. but when I restored the previous config the probbo continued... strange but true, has this happened elsewhere?

I WISH YOU LUCK CUZ IT SOUNDS PRETTY JACKED UP.
You may email me! denodave@yahoo.com

 

[mistanapesis]

I think your link seems to be broken denodave, I`d be interested in reading that. :-( If your unsure....Dont do it!

 

[fenix]

some great posts in reply.

Just to address one thing, I think your (CMOS setup) boot sequence has to be set to A: drive as # 1 if your hard drive is bad. I think if it's set to C: drive before the A:, and the hard drive is bad, it will stick there and not try to boot from the floppy.

Hope someone can confirm or correct this, thx.

 

[Mulga]

What fenix says is correct.
If you do have it set to boot from the floppy first and the problem persists then it is not software. In this case my first suspect would be RAM, faulty or badly seated sticks can cause this reboot problem All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.