Need help, please? Continous Reboots...

T

techprincesse

Okay somebody help? I am a newbie on this board and I am having
problems with a new system I built a few days ago.

Being that i was starting a fresh with a new hard drive i didnt notice
any problems until i started to try and load a new copy of windows xp
pro on here. Brand new 160gb hard drive working fine during post, I
can go all over dos and the bios fine, but when i put the WINXP cd in
for boot and install, it will load up a bunch of drivers all up until
the cd and then after that RIGHT before it gets to loading the winxp
setup utility the entire system will reboot on me. But it doesnt do
it otherwise when i am in dos or the bios. I left it on in DOS
overnight to make sure it wasnt overheating (there are multiple
fans). But I am stumped now, I have used the lowest settings in the
bios and reset to all defaults and still the same result, i cant get
into a GUI for nothing in the world.. I have changed the FSB to 100,
133 and 166 and still the same result. The memory checks out fine at
boot, so does the processor. I am starting to wonder if the video
card is the culprit. Do you think a bad video card could cause a
spontaneous reboot? I bought it at a computer show on the weekend
from a vendor i never heard of, and i cant test out any other
graphics cards cause all of my motherboards have video built in. I
have done everything including resetting the CMOS settings a few
times and changing the memory into different slots. Also tried
putting in an OLD boot drive that already has WinXP loaded on it and
it does the same thing reboots right at the "Starting WinXP prompt",
it will look like its loading winxp and
then it reboots on me right before it starts winxp. This is not the
first s
ystem I have built but I am stumped, I never had this happen to me
before! Any suggestions?

I am running an AMD AthlonXP 2700 combo deal from outpost that came
with an ECS N2U400 Nforce2 chipset mobo with an ATX case and PowMax
400watt power supply that came with the case. 512 of Premium memory
(bought from outpost again) and a PowerCooler 128mb 8X AGP card
(which uses an ATI Radeon 9200 chipset, does that conflict with the
nVidia chipset on the board?). 2 Maxtor drives, one 160gb and one
30mb (with all my data on it). Mobo is set for fsb 166, upon boot it
recognizes the cpu correctly as an AMD Athlon XP 2700+.

Help?

==============
Posted through www.HowToFixComputers.com/bb - free access to hardware troubleshooting newsgroups.
 
D

David Maynard

techprincesse said:
Okay somebody help? I am a newbie on this board and I am having
problems with a new system I built a few days ago.

Being that i was starting a fresh with a new hard drive i didnt notice
any problems until i started to try and load a new copy of windows xp
pro on here. Brand new 160gb hard drive working fine during post, I
can go all over dos and the bios fine, but when i put the WINXP cd in
for boot and install, it will load up a bunch of drivers all up until
the cd and then after that RIGHT before it gets to loading the winxp
setup utility the entire system will reboot on me. But it doesnt do
it otherwise when i am in dos or the bios. I left it on in DOS
overnight to make sure it wasnt overheating (there are multiple
fans). But I am stumped now, I have used the lowest settings in the
bios and reset to all defaults and still the same result, i cant get
into a GUI for nothing in the world.. I have changed the FSB to 100,
133 and 166 and still the same result. The memory checks out fine at
boot, so does the processor. I am starting to wonder if the video
card is the culprit. Do you think a bad video card could cause a
spontaneous reboot?

Most definitely and you described the reason and point where it would
happen; as it's trying to bring up the GUI which, of course, means it's
fully activating the display drivers.

That can be either a bad card, bad drivers, or some other conflict, like
IRQs, simultaneous on-board video (with an AGP video card), etc.

What people refer to as 'spontaneous reboots' are usually WinXP's
'automatic recovery' kicking in where it reboots when a critical crash
occurs and you can turn that off (doesn't mean it'll stay running but you
might see the error identified in the BSOD).

See if you can boot into safe mode (you can turn of the automatic reboot
from there [system/advanced/startup and recovery settings]).
 
D

Don Briggs

You know that your CD drive is working OK, otherwise it would load as much
of XP as it loads. I would definitely turn off the on-board video if you're
running a video card. Try switching the IDE data cables but that probably
won't change the results.


techprincesse said:
Okay somebody help? I am a newbie on this board and I am having
problems with a new system I built a few days ago.

Being that i was starting a fresh with a new hard drive i didnt notice
any problems until i started to try and load a new copy of windows xp
pro on here. Brand new 160gb hard drive working fine during post, I
can go all over dos and the bios fine, but when i put the WINXP cd in
for boot and install, it will load up a bunch of drivers all up until
the cd and then after that RIGHT before it gets to loading the winxp
setup utility the entire system will reboot on me. But it doesnt do
it otherwise when i am in dos or the bios. I left it on in DOS
overnight to make sure it wasnt overheating (there are multiple
fans). But I am stumped now, I have used the lowest settings in the
bios and reset to all defaults and still the same result, i cant get
into a GUI for nothing in the world.. I have changed the FSB to 100,
133 and 166 and still the same result. The memory checks out fine at
boot, so does the processor. I am starting to wonder if the video
card is the culprit. Do you think a bad video card could cause a
spontaneous reboot? I bought it at a computer show on the weekend
from a vendor i never heard of, and i cant test out any other
graphics cards cause all of my motherboards have video built in. I
have done everything including resetting the CMOS settings a few
times and changing the memory into different slots. Also tried
putting in an OLD boot drive that already has WinXP loaded on it and
it does the same thing reboots right at the "Starting WinXP prompt",
it will look like its loading winxp and
then it reboots on me right before it starts winxp. This is not the
first s
ystem I have built but I am stumped, I never had this happen to me
before! Any suggestions?

I am running an AMD AthlonXP 2700 combo deal from outpost that came
with an ECS N2U400 Nforce2 chipset mobo with an ATX case and PowMax
400watt power supply that came with the case. 512 of Premium memory
(bought from outpost again) and a PowerCooler 128mb 8X AGP card
(which uses an ATI Radeon 9200 chipset, does that conflict with the
nVidia chipset on the board?). 2 Maxtor drives, one 160gb and one
30mb (with all my data on it). Mobo is set for fsb 166, upon boot it
recognizes the cpu correctly as an AMD Athlon XP 2700+.

Help?

==============
Posted through www.HowToFixComputers.com/bb - free access to hardware
troubleshooting newsgroups.
 
G

GTS

techprincesse said:
Okay somebody help? I am a newbie on this board and I am having
problems with a new system I built a few days ago.

Being that i was starting a fresh with a new hard drive i didnt notice
any problems until i started to try and load a new copy of windows xp
pro on here. Brand new 160gb hard drive working fine during post, I
can go all over dos and the bios fine, but when i put the WINXP cd in
for boot and install, it will load up a bunch of drivers all up until
the cd and then after that RIGHT before it gets to loading the winxp
setup utility the entire system will reboot on me. But it doesnt do
it otherwise when i am in dos or the bios. I left it on in DOS
overnight to make sure it wasnt overheating (there are multiple
fans). But I am stumped now, I have used the lowest settings in the
bios and reset to all defaults and still the same result, i cant get
into a GUI for nothing in the world.. I have changed the FSB to 100,
133 and 166 and still the same result. The memory checks out fine at
boot, so does the processor. I am starting to wonder if the video
card is the culprit. Do you think a bad video card could cause a
spontaneous reboot? I bought it at a computer show on the weekend
from a vendor i never heard of, and i cant test out any other
graphics cards cause all of my motherboards have video built in. I
have done everything including resetting the CMOS settings a few
times and changing the memory into different slots. Also tried
putting in an OLD boot drive that already has WinXP loaded on it and
it does the same thing reboots right at the "Starting WinXP prompt",
it will look like its loading winxp and
then it reboots on me right before it starts winxp. This is not the
first s
ystem I have built but I am stumped, I never had this happen to me
before! Any suggestions?

I am running an AMD AthlonXP 2700 combo deal from outpost that came
with an ECS N2U400 Nforce2 chipset mobo with an ATX case and PowMax
400watt power supply that came with the case. 512 of Premium memory
(bought from outpost again) and a PowerCooler 128mb 8X AGP card
(which uses an ATI Radeon 9200 chipset, does that conflict with the
nVidia chipset on the board?). 2 Maxtor drives, one 160gb and one
30mb (with all my data on it). Mobo is set for fsb 166, upon boot it
recognizes the cpu correctly as an AMD Athlon XP 2700+.

Help?
Are all the drives listed correct in the BIOS? Is the 160gb HDD SATA or
PATA?
All all the drives jumpered correctly?
 
B

BruceM

I think you are getting more to the point there Dick.
XP with DOS? mmmmmmmmmm
I bought a second hand computer a while back that the seller formatted the
HD as a slave in another comp & just put the system files on it.
I had heaps of trouble getting XP on it. Ended up doing a format on it as a
slave & leaving it with absolutely bare. Had no problems then.
BruceM
 

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