Computer restarts itself repeatedly.. :/

[jexeneko]

My computer was running perfectly fine, no errors, no problems, notta. I come home last night and its off, which was weird since i had left it on before going out. So I turn it back on, it stays on for about 15 minutes or so, then just shuts off, no windows shutdown or anything, instantly shuts itself off. Now I cant start it back up, I figure it might have been a bad power supply for some reason. Luckily, I had a new one that I hadn't needed yet, so I hook that one up. The computer starts up alright, for about 8 seconds. It lets me get to the windows loading, then restarts itself, and now, it starts up for maybe 2 seconds if that, repeatedly restarting itself :/ So I thought maybe its the CPU.. again, I had a duplicate CPU (I have many parts lying around...) So I put that in. Nothing, same problem.. I switch mainboards even, still, same problem.. I am at a loss for what to do! Any suggestions? Anyone?!?

Thanks!
~Sarah

 

[ryantruck]

Does it still reboot when you unplug everything but bare minimum (IE) unplug HDD CDROM drive does the motherboard have onboard graphics or video card unplug all PSU connections except motherboard.

 

[jexeneko]

I took out all of my cards (video, LAN, sound) unplugged my HDD and CD drive, it just says couldnt find either then, so I plugged in only what I needed, got partially through setting up windows and then restarted itself again :/

 

[sparkysting]

I took out all of my cards (video, LAN, sound) unplugged my HDD and CD drive, it just says couldnt find either then, so I plugged in only what I needed, got partially through setting up windows and then restarted itself again :/

Have your installed More Memory recently? What was the last thing you where doing when the computer started rebooting itself?

 

[Dan2ac]

Mine started doing this same thing about a week ago..all of a sudden.. XP on Sony Vaio
no new parts or programs..
I thought it may be a ram problem.
I had 2 sticks of 512.. I took out 1 and it worked fine..
I then swapped out the 1 stick for the other and it worked fine..
so I felt the sticks were not bad..I put them both back in and it started shutting down again... So I bought a 1 gig stick thinking that may solve it but when put in that makes it shut down also....
It just seems like my computer decided it doesn't like over 512 ram..
both slots work with just 1 stick installed..
I even tried restoring the entire hard drive...and that didn't help...
I am at a loss...but maybe
You can try messing with your ram..
DAn II

 

[Iam138]

random restarts

I recently had the same problem recently as in yesterday. I tried everything and nothing worked my power supply tested fine my graphics card even though overclocked showed no artifacts and was not over heating my cpu was fine as far temp goes all 3 fans running great no registry issues well i thought to myself what if my actual wall socket was bad? or perhaps my surge protector well i live in a old house and sure enough after checking my surge protecter i simply switched wall sockets (to the other one in the room) and viola' problem solved sounds simple but so far no problems for 24+ hours now. It's worth a shot.

 

[nilesp]

I have a similar problem (I've had it before but magically things have resolved themselves for no apparent reason at all). All fans (except cpufan) starts up for 1 second and then shut downs/starts up again in an endless loop til I flip the power switch at the back (I get no signal to the display at all). Pressing/holding the on-button at the front does nothing. Is my problem a sure sign that something is wrong with my cpu-fan (and, if so, is there a plausible reason why the problem has resolved itself in the past?) or could it be something different?

(I might add that I recently had a new problem that haven't appeared before (that also resolved itself within a day). The computer started up (all fans) but I didn't get a display and no windows sound and the fans never slowed down as they always do after the first few seconds (also the keyboard didn't light up as it always does) and I had to shut it down with the main switch).

 

[Iam138]

sounds as if yours is a power supply issue probably slowly failing it happens. That's my best guess from what you describe.