Help Troubleshooting

[phishphreek]

A buddy of mine has a Micron Pc with a pIII 750 128mb ram running WinME.

Everytime we boot the pc it automatically reboots after about 10-20 seconds.

I have tried booting to safe mode, but I get the same thing.
I even tried loading Win98Se on it and still doing the same thing.

This leads me to think think it is not a software problem.

I started troubleshooting the hardware.

Pulled the RAM and tried it in another machine. Works fine.
Pulled the sound card and tried in another machine. Works fine.
Pulled the video card and tried in another machine. Works fine.
Pulled the modem and works fine in another machine.
Pulled the network card and works fine in another machine.
Pulled the battery on the bios for over a half hour. Didn't help.
Reset the bios via jumpers on the mobo. Didn't help.
The hard drive isn't making funny sounds and it sounds "healthy".

I don't know where to go from here.

I have looked in the bios at the temp of the CPU and it looks OK. I know that if it gets too hot, it can cause a system shutdown.

Has anyone heard of anything like this?

I'm thinking it might be the power supply, but don't currently have another one to try. I'm looking for an extra one to test.

I have searched the web but didn't really come up with anything useful. Mostly how to disable auto reboot on a fatal error.

Any/all suggestions welcome.

Thanks in advance!

[THEJRC]

power supply indefinately, sounds like you got a bad capacitor. they other problem may be in a bad mainboard however this is quite rare.... I would go after the power supply first off... 10 to one thats your issue.

[vanman]

If possible format it , and reload everything.This way at least you will get a clean install.I say this since you have already tried to install win98se.

regards
v/man

[Curious_One]

This may sound crazy but did you check the power management in the bios? We have a few Micron's at work and a couple were doing this. We had to disable power management in one of them and the other one was rebooting because someone put the mouse and keyboard in backwards.

just a thought.

[mrleachy]

i would be taking a very serious look at the mainboard or power supply as thejrc said,
i knwo someone with a laptop that has been having restarting probs and it is either the mainboard or power supply that is causing the problem, the only difference here is that sometimes this laptop wouldnt boot at all (from battery or mains power)

[phishphreek]

I missed that little deail... when I installed Win98Se, I did format it before hand. The important data is on a server... thankfully.

I will check into all suggestions. Mainboard, power supply, but first I'm going to check out the power management in the bios. Can't hurt.

I'm almost positive that we plugged the mouse and keyboard into the correct ports.

Thanks for the help!

[vanman]

Remember to do a unconditional format otherwise your mirror image stays on the disk
regards
v/man

[Sgt_B]

I've seen excessive heat shut pc's down before. Its a failsafe so the computer doesn't melt. Might want to look into that too, as I don't see this mentioned in other posts. Just another possibility.

[mooky]

You didn't mention if you tried to run the system with minimum hardware. Pull everything out and just run the system with one ram stick, graphics card and no other cards. Also disconnect all drives except your hard drive. Check the cpu is what you think it is and is not over clocked. Hope you find your problem and a cheap solution.

[Internet Hacker]

A buddy of mine has a Micron Pc with a pIII 750 128mb ram running WinME.

Everytime we boot the pc it automatically reboots after about 10-20 seconds.

I have tried booting to safe mode, but I get the same thing.
I even tried loading Win98Se on it and still doing the same thing.

While maybe you should To enter the CMOS Setup, you must press a certain key or combination of keys during the initial startup sequence. Most systems use "Esc," "Del," "F1," "F2," "Ctrl-Esc" or "Ctrl-Alt-Esc" to enter setup. There is usually a line of text at the bottom of the display that tells you "Press ___ to Enter Setup."

Once you have entered setup, you will see a set of text screens with a number of options. Some of these are standard, while others vary according to the BIOS manufacturer. Common options include:

System Time/Date - Set the system time and date
Boot Sequence - The order that BIOS will try to load the operating system
Plug and Play - A standard for auto-detecting connected devices; should be set to "Yes" if your computer and operating system both support it
Mouse/Keyboard - "Enable Num Lock," "Enable the Keyboard," "Auto-Detect Mouse"...
Drive Configuration - Configure hard drives, CD-ROM and floppy drives
Memory - Direct the BIOS to shadow to a specific memory address
Security - Set a password for accessing the computer
Power Management - Select whether to use power management, as well as set the amount of time for standby and suspend
Exit - Save your changes, discard your changes or restore default settings