Windows XP reset on start-up

[Guest]

Randomly, during Windows start-up my computer restarts itself trys restarting
windows. This occurs while the Windows XP splash screen is displayed and the
progress bar about 3/4 of the way down the screen is moving back and forth.
The progress bar stops moving and the computer immediately restarts.
Sometimes it will get to the Windows XP splash screen and continue and other
times it will get there and restart again and again. Usually after 3 or 4
restarts it completes properly. I have run virus scans, and ad-ware scans
with nothing found. SP2 has been installed. Any thoughts would be
appreciated.

 

[Guest]

Have there been any recent hardware changes made to the computer? Is the
computer a Dell By chance?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for responding. No, there have been no hardware or software changes.
The PC is one I assembled about a year ago using an Intel 3Gh processor on an
Asus motherboard.

 

[Guest]

I had a problem like that working with a dell and ended up calling dell
support on it. Support said that it was because of the ram i installed on it
which freaked the BIOS out. I had to press some special keys which clearded
the BIOS and made it search for all hardware again. Im not sure if your BIOS
has that capability, but id definatly research it from the manufacturer.

 

[ras]

Are you getting any additional POST beeps that you normally don't? Could be
failing hardware or a card that's not seated well.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion Ras. No, I'm not getting any other POST beeps, but
I do get a message saying something like "We're sorry for the inconvience,
but Windows did not start properly ....................... " then it give me
several options such as Start in Safe mode, Start in Safe mode with
networking allowed, and Start normally. I have been selecting to Start
normally and sometimes it does and other times I have to go through it all
again until it does actually start correctly. Once running I NEVER have any
other problems or resets, so it's just something at start-up that isn't
correct, but only sometimes. It does seem to be getting worse though.
THanks for your thoughts.

 

[ras]

You might also try this: go to Start | Run and type 'msconfig' (without the
quotes). Then on the Boot.ini tab there are two things you can try. One is
to enable BOOTLOG. As your system boots it will log all processes and
drivers being loaded along with any that fail for whatever reason. The
other thing to try is the 'Check all boot paths' button. I'd be curious to
see what it finds. Another idea: Have you checked your Event Viewer to see
what errors it's recording?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice RAS. I will try that this evening and let you know.
Where will the BOOTLOG be written to? Where will I find that file so that I
can take a look at it?
Thanks

 

[Guest]

The RAM is a good possibility. I'll look into that and let you know what I
found out.