Windows XP SP2 on Athlon 64 boot loop problem

[Martin Whybrow]

I'm trying to fault find my father's recently acquired PC.
System is Asus K8V SE Deluxe mainboard
PNY Verto GeForce FX 5500 8x AGP, 128MB DDR video card
Maxtor D740x-6L IDE drive on Primary master
Samsung Spinrite SATA drive 120GB on SATA 1
DVD-RW drive on IDE secondary master
DVD drive on secondary slave
512MB RAM in DIMM 0
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ CPU.
Windows XP SP2 on IDE master drive.

System POSTs correctly, all hardware is detected. After POST beep, system
resets; this looping continues ad-infinitum.
I've tried going into SAFE mode after hitting F8 with the same results; I've
also tried SAFE mode with DOS prompt, VGA mode and last known good config
mode and I've tried "Disable automatic restart on system failure" in case
there's a BSOD I'm missing, all give the same behaviour (and no BSOD).
Machine boots Knoppix CD-ROM and runs with no problems and I can access the
(boot) hard disk.
Boot machine from XP CD and select recovery console; run chkdsk with no
major problems. I've tried FIXMBR but this doesn't change anything.
I've also edited boot.ini to change the NoExecute parameter to AlwaysOff to
disable DEP but this has made no difference.
I've tried running the machine with the SATA drive disconnected and I've
flashed the BIOS to the latest release (1007); again, no difference.
Unfortunately I don't know the history of this machine so I don't know when
it first failed (it was given to my father in an unknown state).
I'm running out of ideas, any help appreciated.
Martin

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm trying to fault find my father's recently acquired PC.
System is Asus K8V SE Deluxe mainboard
PNY Verto GeForce FX 5500 8x AGP, 128MB DDR video card
Maxtor D740x-6L IDE drive on Primary master
Samsung Spinrite SATA drive 120GB on SATA 1
DVD-RW drive on IDE secondary master
DVD drive on secondary slave
512MB RAM in DIMM 0
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ CPU.
Windows XP SP2 on IDE master drive.

System POSTs correctly, all hardware is detected. After POST beep, system
resets; this looping continues ad-infinitum.
I've tried going into SAFE mode after hitting F8 with the same results; I've
also tried SAFE mode with DOS prompt, VGA mode and last known good config
mode and I've tried "Disable automatic restart on system failure" in case
there's a BSOD I'm missing, all give the same behaviour (and no BSOD).
Machine boots Knoppix CD-ROM and runs with no problems and I can access the
(boot) hard disk.
Boot machine from XP CD and select recovery console; run chkdsk with no
major problems. I've tried FIXMBR but this doesn't change anything.
I've also edited boot.ini to change the NoExecute parameter to AlwaysOff to
disable DEP but this has made no difference.
I've tried running the machine with the SATA drive disconnected and I've
flashed the BIOS to the latest release (1007); again, no difference.
Unfortunately I don't know the history of this machine so I don't know when
it first failed (it was given to my father in an unknown state).
I'm running out of ideas, any help appreciated.
Martin

Since it was given to your father in an unknown state, you do not
know what's lurking there. Reload Windows onto a freshly partitioned
and formatted disk. It takes only an hour or so.