Failing to boot to XP / Restarting

[Scinto]

Have a PC from a friend of the family and asked to see if i could fix it.

Turn it on i get POST, Windows XP loading screen then it restarts so i thought the PSU might be crapping out and replaced it with a spare 300w i have (original is 250w) same thing happened again..

So i looked in Bios at the event log it says that the last dozen or so errors have been the CPU overheating so i removed the HSF too see a nice thick layer of Thermal Paste now since i don't have any cleaning stuff for it atm i clean most of it off with some dry bog roll and reapplied a small amount of Artic Silver, yet the same thing keeps happening so what to do now? (rebuilding is a last option)

From what i can gather its,

Asus P5S800-VM LGA 775
Pentium 4 3.2Ghz
2x512mb DDR400
Some Geforce AGP Jobby

[signa]

use Isopropyl alcohol to clean the cpu and sink off before applying new paste - it works really well.

maybe the cpu is toast. do you have another P4 you could swap in to see if it works? a replacement P4 should be pretty cheap if thats the problem.

[Scinto]

use Isopropyl alcohol to clean the cpu and sink off before applying new paste - it works really well.

i know ill have to get some, probs tuesday,

maybe the cpu is toast. do you have another P4 you could swap in to see if it works? a replacement P4 should be pretty cheap if thats the problem.

yep got one in my old rig will try it tomorrow.

[megawhompertoo]

i know ill have to get some, probs tuesday,



yep got one in my old rig will try it tomorrow.

look for blown or bulging capacitors, also. the oem's had a very bad run of them circa 04-05, and some of them may have ended up in the retail mobo sector. bad caps will cause thermal cpu errors. my department was victimized by who ever Dell bought their caps from, but they make these things in batches of hundred of millions....so...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dell+bad+capacitors

[Scinto]

look for blown or bulging capacitors, also. the oem's had a very bad run of them circa 04-05, and some of them may have ended up in the retail mobo sector. bad caps will cause thermal cpu errors. my department was victimized by who ever Dell bought their caps from, but they make these things in batches of hundred of millions....so...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...bad+capacitors

no bulging or blown capacitors, didn't get round to swapping the CPU today will have to tomorrow.

[looqas]

These jobs for a friend are a real pain.

"Please, can you take a look at my comp?". And you said yes, sure!

Anyway I hope you'll find out what's wrong and get paid at least something in return.

Dumb question but have to be made: The CPU fan is running? Can you see the idle temp at BIOS? P4s are really hot as default, so it might not be such a big surprise if the CPU has burned something over the time.

Still the system POSTs so it can't be all broken. Any beeps?

My brother had a case where the XP was corrupted (your friend's machine might have been doing some critical file handling when the heat spike killed the machine) and restarted when trying to load so it might not be the hardware at fault here. The soddy thing about this scenario is that those DELLs ship with pre-installed XP and even the repair might not be enough.

[Scinto]

These jobs for a friend are a real pain.

"Please, can you take a look at my comp?". And you said yes, sure!

Anyway I hope you'll find out what's wrong and get paid at least something in return.

Dumb question but have to be made: 1. The CPU fan is running? 2. Can you see the idle temp at BIOS? P4s are really hot as default, so it might not be such a big surprise if the CPU has burned something over the time.

1. Yep had the case open making sure.
2. Nope cant seem to find it.

Still the system POSTs so it can't be all broken. Any beeps?

Nope.

My brother had a case where the XP was corrupted (your friend's machine might have been doing some critical file handling when the heat spike killed the machine) and restarted when trying to load so it might not be the hardware at fault here. The soddy thing about this scenario is that those DELLs ship with pre-installed XP and even the repair might not be enough.

I try to boot it in safe mode an it gets to one of the AGP files before restarting so perhaps XP is corrupted, i will hookup the Hdd to another Comp and recover all the important things.

Its not a dell slightly worse its a Packard Bell

[=98=]

Windows repair reinstall?

[signa]

I try to boot it in safe mode an it gets to one of the AGP files before restarting so perhaps XP is corrupted, i will hookup the Hdd to another Comp and recover all the important things.

you could always try booting a linux cd to see if its boots. try ubuntu's live cd.

[Scinto]

Right found where the CPU temps are hiding in the BIOS Idle it was running idle at 71c, the cut off it sat at 75c after altering the fan speed it dropped to 60ish, but it still reboots when trying to load XP.

I did hook up the hdd to another pc earlier but i couldn't access the drive, tried some recovery software but that failed midway.

I cant get to either recovery console because I get BSoD's, will try the ubuntu live cd but if that fails the hdd is fubar..

[signa]

a p4 idling at 70 is pretty bad. :)