Reboot Loop and PC Fan Failed Please Help

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Spudweiser

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Thank you in Advance.
PC was left on for a few hours in warm room. When I came back something like hardware not detected. I rebooted, and it goes straight into a reboot loop. You get the option of Safe Mode, but once you go into safe mode it reboots as well. So after throughly searching google I tried a few settings in Bios and same result.
I gave up and reloaded XP. XP loads fine, add all of my neccessary hardware and drivers. Played a few games, went on the net and rebooted loop is back.
when you start pc, Asus logo comes up, windows something went wrong message, you can select safe, good configuration or normal. No matter what you select it reboots after windows logo. Please help as I am desparate trying to finish homework. Thank you.
 
How old is the computer, and the hard drive. The symptoms you report are typical of an impending hard drive failure. But it could be a failed cpu fan, failing video graphics card, or a cooling problem due to too much or too little thermal paste between the cpu and heat sink... Or even just dirt and hair in the cooling fans or cpu fan, or a failing memory module. I would not play any games until you figger this out... As they will likely aggravate the problem. First, attempt to clean out any dirt and hair ... Carefully, as you can create static electricity that will make everything into a crisis... We recommend difluoroethane gas such as dust off, but the canned stuff sold at wal-mart will do the job. Do not use a vacuum cleaner or a common blower... They can introduce dangerous static electricity. Then see if you can determine what is the brand and model of the hard drive. If you can get it to run long enough, download the drive fitness test from the website of the hard drive manufacturer... And test your hard drive... It will take only a minute or two. If that is ok, you might want to download and attempt to run the free memtest86... But it should be run for four hours or 7 passes, and your system may not run long enough to do that. If you have been doing a lot of gaming, it could be creating enough heat to cause these problems... So try a cold boot, the run your homework without running games. They are capable of creating a lot of heat, and forcing slow or defective memory modules to misbehave.
 
Thank you - Still having issues.

I built this pc in Jan of 2005. I had to reformat it about 2 years ago. It is very clean inside. I use Blow Off Duster or something similar about every 3 months. It was pretty hot in the room with door shut the day this happened. Before I reformatted, I removed the CPU Fan/heatsink cleaned off all of the paste and applied new thermal paste with fan/heatsink. I am not a huge gamer as I just don't have the time, but I was playing some Casino games (reel deel ghost town) to verify everything was working correctly.
This is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Serial ATA150 Hard Drive with an ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe MOBO. Intel Pentium 4 3.0E Prescott 3.0GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 478 89W Single-Core Processor.
It ran for about 4 hours or so after I re-installed win xp. All of the fans, including the CPU seem to be running normal. I have checked every connection I can think of including changing out the SATA cable.
Again, thanks for your help.
 
Usually the hard drive trumps the cpu. Take a close look at your cpu for dirt, dust, and hair... sniff for burned smells.
Remove the Heatsink and check the thermal paste. It should be very thin, and very soft. If it is hard and cooked, that tells you a lot.
Hard drives fail all the time. CPU's rarely fail ever, but sometimes the cpu fan will quit... So try a start while you can watch the rotation of the cpu fan blades... if it turns only once or twice, it is most likely the power supply or the cpu fan.
CPU fans are cheap, and easy to replace.
 
I removed the fan/heatsink yesterday and it was soft, not burned or hard. The fan seems to be running well. It starts right up and then inside is very clean around the heatsink. Would the hard drive allow me to load winxp, software, drivers and then fail again like it did?
 
Yes.
Go to the website of the manufacturer of the hard drive, then download their version of their drive fitness test and test your drive.
It could be anything... hard drive, video graphics card, memory, or power supply.
 
Errors!

So I finally got the diagnostics to work, So far 2 drive errors. Will get with you tomorrow. Thank you again.
 
I think all is well!

Great Job Raybay
I went to Seagate, downloaded the boot disk with diagnostics and booted up pc. This test found 2 hard drive errors. I repaired both errors, restarted pc and it came up to windows with no issues, just like I had left it. Thank you for the advice and I hope this solved the issue.
 
Thanks for taking the time to post what you learned, and that is appears fixed. Sometimes we never know.
Be aware, also, that Seagate drives have a five year warranty from the date on the drive, or from the date of your receipt or invoice.
If you get any more errors, that is not a good sign. Call Seagate, and they will send you a replacement.
 
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