MoonCat

Help !!

PC keeps rebooting while I am trying to install XP but is OK while in DOS (Used win98 boot disk, format etc), been searching for problems with this MoBo (K7VZA) it seems to be very sensitive to poor power supplies,
There is no difference betwen running DOS and installing windows is there? (Iwas booting XP from the CDROM what do they draw from the supply?)
would being ok in DOS also rule out the memory??

fastfrank

Hi,

RAM is usually the first port of call when a machine reboots sporadically. I'd first start by reducing the system to bare bones e.g. reduce to one RAM module no extra accessory cards like TV cards etc. Does this help?

What was the state of the PC before? Did it have Windows on prevously and experience any problems then?

You PC won't be demanding as much from your system whilst in DOS because the Video mode is low. Once you travel into high res the Video card starts to put more load on the PSU. It depends what type of video card you have to. Some of the newer Gforce models need a beefy system.

What size PSU do you have? Can you swap this out to eliminate this factor?

Also... I had a problem once with a PC rebooting and it was the PSU. Every time my CDROM kicked in the PC went off. The PSU eventually blew up!


Hope this helps

Frank

MoonCat

Frank,

It had XP on it before and was coming up with Unmountable Boot Volume (I dont know if it was rebooting on him to cause this). I tried to sort it out from the recovery console on the xp disk but it kept rebooting.
ran checkdisk it froze part way through. was not sure if any virus where on the disk so thought I will start again format/reinstall. Had already striped out modem, 2nd hard drive and other stuff.

300W PSU
Only 8Meg Video card
Have not tried RAM yet will have to nick some out of my PC or put his RAM in my PC and run a mem test (can you recomend any?).
Will have a go at that tommorow

Thanks for the reply

fastfrank

Hi,
Sounds like a RAM problem to me...

Try this first.... re-seat all your RAM modules and try again. Sometimes the contacts get tanished with age and can cause this kind of issue.

If that fails: I'd go as you are in reducing the RAM and trying the system again. Not sure on the architecture of your machine.. can you knock it down to one module???

Have you or can you try installing XP onto your second drive to eliminate the hard disc being the problem?

As for programs to diagnose your RAM... i'd just do the above. You'll find out soon enough which module will be a duffer.


Laters

F

lightning101

It sound like the processor is overheating, try reseating the heatsink with thermal past in between. The computer will cut the power everytime the power and heat are increased e.g. installing windows (but not in dos or bios).

fastfrank

Hi,
I hate to disagree but the problem is occuring at early stages whilst booting off CD. I can't see the CPU overheating that quick unless its competely screwed.


F

cong

could be ram or could be c.d is not reading the disc do you get any error messages? and then crashing?

MJW

I had a PC with a rebooting problem not so long since, and the problem turned out to be CPU overheat. What had happened was one of the CPU clips had broken and the heatsink was only cooling a small portion of the CPU. You'd be surprised how quick a CPU can hit 50+° C
So check the CPU and heatsink/fan assembly are seated correctly then go by process of elimination checking each device. a 300W PSU is pretty small fry these days so I would recommend you try a 350 or maybe a 400 (I use Enermax which are pretty reliable). Then try swapping the RAM chips, HDD etc. Make sure your board and chip are all at stock speeds and voltages too.