Madly rebooting PC

[Wisq]

If my system suddenly starts rebooting a dozen times before it can successfully complete the POST, what's the most likely culprit? I'm thinking power supply, especially since adding hardware seems to make the reboots infinite.

[Wisq]

Hmm, it's more than just that, too. In fact, I got it to boot okay at one point, and when it does, it works fine. But it has a lot of quirks on boot-up.

Most of the time, it enters into the mad-reboot mode, where the video isn't even active long enough for the monitor to sync. Sometimes it makes it far enough to do the boot-up beep; other times, the only indication it's doing anything is the clicking of the monitor trying to sync, and the flashing LEDs on the keyboard.

Sometimes it'll interrupt the reboot-reboot-reboot pattern and actually make it reasonably far into the power-up process. Other times, it gets nowhere. Just now, it finished IDE drive detection, then died again.

Another interesting quirk: When I power it up sometimes, very little happens. Quiet. No power LED; just the red hard drive LED for many seconds. Then, finally, I hear the drives spin up, the power LED comes on... and the system starts reboot-reboot-rebooting.

All this mostly started today, but then, today's the first time I've been booting more than once a day. I did go inside it today, but I know it also did at least one reboot-reboot-reboot-boot-normally today, before I went inside it. So presumably, whatever's failing is not my doing.

It's hotter than usual in here today. I suppose it could be heat-related. The chip is a P4, so I know it won't die under heat, but I wonder about the power supply. What makes me doubt the overheating thing, though, is that once the system succeeds in booting, it seems to run okay for awhile.

I'll try another memtest on it, if I can get it to boot again. This is the same system that had a single byte of bad memory. I worked around it using the Linux 'badram' patch, but if another bad spot has developed, it could be causing this kind of wackiness.

Edit: Scratch "runs okay for a while"; it's not running very long at all right now. Guess I'll open it up again and see if anything's overheating. May have to actually take it in and have someone (with more spare parts than myself) look at it.

Edit 2: Replaced the power supply with a spare one from the office. ("Spare" in the "nobody was using that machine" sense, anyway.) If it's a PSU issue, I guess I'm okay; if it's an overheating issue, I guess I'll find out eventually. Wasn't a wattage issue, though, because this PSU actually has 50 fewer watts.

[energyman76b]

Well, what the sticker on a PSU says, and what it is able to drive are two completly different pairs of shoes

but when I had my reboot-madness, it was the PSU.

[Wisq]

Things are still running smoothly. Yay.

If it was the PSU, then it was a spontaneous problem that developed after a couple years of use. Worked fine until today.

(BTW: Egads, Win98SE fdisk sucks. Why on earth is it spending ages verifying the disk a second time, just because I said "no" when it asked if I wanted to use the entire disk? The sooner I get a dummy environment for Wine and can get away from 98, the better. )

[chuck_starchaser]

PLUG
Note: I don't work for Antec.
Ever since I bougt my first Antec power supply, I've never bought anything less. My boss's computer at home had a power supply failure recently and it burnt EVERYTHING: mobo, cpu, memory, hard drives, even the keyboard. I told him to buy an Antec supply but the cheap bastard bought a new computer and didn't upgrade the power supply. One of these days it will happen again and he'll listen to me...
For my new computer I bought an Antec Overture case (wide and flat, like in the good old days), with 380W supply. Paid $150 and change, but no regrets: Everything well thought out, includding rubber grummets where the hard drives mount for additional vibration absorption, and 4 built-in fans --powerful and ultra-quiet, like you hear the woosh of the air but not the fan itself; plus front connections for USB, Firewire and Audio, solid construction and gorgeous glossy black finish; must be baked paint, like looking at car body paint. Every time I leave a fingerprint on it I find myself wiping it with this antistatic fine cloth rag (that came with it).
But, yeah, everything starts with the power supply, and unfortunately it's the most marginally designed part in a typical computer. Very much worth spending a bit of extra money and getting a quality component.
/PLUG

[loki1950]

yeah i got a antec true power 480 and said goodbye to flakeness since i have a gF6800gt and nvidia reccomends at least 400w for it.
Enjoy the Choice

[CoffeeBot]

Cheers to Antec. Good stuff, thems.

[Wisq]

Once had a power supply that died within a week, apparently taking my motherboard, CPU, and video card with it (not cheap ones, either). Once back in the hands of the vendor, it took out another motherboard and two video cards, I think, before they finally realised the power supply was the spawn of the devil. Yay warranties.