Need Computer Help ^^

[ultraviolet]

For the last week or so my computer has been restarting itself upon booting up. This can happen from as soon as he Window´s (XP Pro) black loading screen is visible (even if I only see it very quickly flash before it restarts) to a few minutes after loading up in windows. It may do it once or it may do it several times before It finally seems to

Comments

[cesarin]

right before the "starting windows XP" screen shows up (ie,r ight after bios)
press F8
theres an option to "disable auto restart on error" or similar.
that should let you see the error that windows gets before restarting ( probably its gonna be a BSOD or blue screen of deadth)

[stokerbramwell]

Hmm, have you dusted out its innards lately? Could be as simple as it needing a good cleaning.

[jolbars]

Well, if it could go in reboot from just a few secs (just after BIOS) to a few minutes after Windows is loaded I'll bet for a hardware failure.

Most probably - overheating (faulty CPU or system cooler), it could cause instabilities leading to reboot or freeze, even cause some memory errors. Just check if all funs start up at power-on and firmly attached.

Next probably - power supply, especially if your computer have some power-hungry hardware and your power supply is working under heavy load (i.e. not powerful enough for hungry cpu or video). Well, I don't know an easy way to check it, so at least check power supply fan, mostly power supply degrade cause is overloading and overheating.

Next - memory or system bridge failure. Well, bad enough. You will need to run memtest86 or similar testing software to check it.

[sci]

Is it the same restarting issue as before? I still have the replacement motherboard sitting here.
My concern is it's a mainboard fault, since all the other parts were known working. My own fault for trying to shoehorn in that extra SATA functionality.