Repetitive Re-Booting Problem

[Searcher7]

I have a Dell XPS-Z 866Mhz Pentium 3, with 384mb and a 20Gig hard
drive that is only two thirds full..

When I power the system on it tends to reset and start over at varying
point during the booting sequence. I usually get to a point where I
have to press "DEL" to get it to re-boot, and sometimes I make it as
far as my desktop, but then after a couple of seconds the machine will
reboot again.

At first it only happened occasionally, but it has been getting
progressively worse, and the last time I turned it on I went through
the re-booting cycle 8 or 9 times before it finally stayed on.

Any ideas on what to look at first? Could it be the power supply?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

 

[B.D.©]

I have a Dell XPS-Z 866Mhz Pentium 3, with 384mb and a 20Gig hard
drive that is only two thirds full..

When I power the system on it tends to reset and start over at varying
point during the booting sequence. I usually get to a point where I
have to press "DEL" to get it to re-boot, and sometimes I make it as
far as my desktop, but then after a couple of seconds the machine will
reboot again.

At first it only happened occasionally, but it has been getting
progressively worse, and the last time I turned it on I went through
the re-booting cycle 8 or 9 times before it finally stayed on.

Any ideas on what to look at first? Could it be the power supply?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

I could be several things. What happens when you try to boot into Safe
Mode?
To get into safe mode, start tapping the F8 key when you first see the
Dell boot screen. Select Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking when
the options screen shows.
If the system has been consistently shutting down then there is a good
possibility that the Options menu will be showing as soon as your system
restarts so you won't need to use the F8 key.

 

[Rich Barry]

Darren, when and if you get WinXP to load up and stay on try rt clicking
MyComputer>select Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Uncheck the box
Automatically Restart. That might give you a blue screen with error message
next time this happens.
Post the error message here. Otherwise, I agree that it could be your
Power Supply.

 

[D. Kirkpatrick]

I have a Dell XPS-Z 866Mhz Pentium 3, with 384mb and a 20Gig hard
drive that is only two thirds full..

When I power the system on it tends to reset and start over at varying
point during the booting sequence. I usually get to a point where I
have to press "DEL" to get it to re-boot, and sometimes I make it as
far as my desktop, but then after a couple of seconds the machine will
reboot again.

At first it only happened occasionally, but it has been getting
progressively worse, and the last time I turned it on I went through
the re-booting cycle 8 or 9 times before it finally stayed on.

Any ideas on what to look at first? Could it be the power supply?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

As suggested may be several things.

I recently checked a system that kept shutting down and refusing to
reboot for long periods of time. I found the circulating fan attached
to the central processor chip had died so it was over heating.

I replaced the fan and all was better.

On my wife's system I recently heard the same fan cluthing into
overdrive and when I opened it up I found the fins were caked with
dust. A brush and vacuum later and all is well.