My computer keeps rebooting by itself. But sometimes it:
1. just hangs
2. screen goes blank with a green bar at the top
3. reboots then hangs during POST.
4. before rebooting, illegal operation messages or the blue screen pop up.
5. reboots then hangs at startup, monitor goes on standby.
6. keeps rebooting with continuous long beeps.

I already bought new ram, coz I thought the long beeps meant bad ram.
But it still reboots. I tried tightening everything there is to tighten, and swapping the ram between banks. I removed all peripherals except the graphics card, 2 hard disks, and the CDROM drive (its not the CDROM drive).

my comp:
PIII-733 on a VIA APOLLO PRO mobo (694AS)
inno3D Geforce2 MX
256mb pc133 ram
2 hard disks (samsung and quantum)

HELP MEEE!!!

Hello Onch and welcome,
Sorry to hear all that. Does it ever startup right? Have you run any antivirus yet? What was being done with this machine before this started? Can you start with a boot disk? Can you open the case and see if the CPU fan is spinning when you try to start up? What OS?

If you can get her to fly in DOS, you might go HERE (http://www.fprot.org/fr_english.htm) and download "Fprot."
I don't use any antivirus, so I can't tell you much about it. I do know it is highly regarded around here though, and it works in DOS, the most basic functionality of any machine running Windows.
Post back and we will go from there. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

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Any way you could beg or borrow a different power supply to
try on your PC?

Is there another PC around that you could try your Video Card
in to check it out?

If you can, let us know what the illegal operation message happens to be.

Luck.

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....How long is a minute... depends on which side of the Bathroom door you're on. ......Indecision may or may not be my problem......
..........

You may also have a failing MB or CPU.

Actually, it hangs at pretty much any point from startup to shutdown. It hangs as early as when the videocard info flashes on the screen at startup.
The cpu fan is spinning, i can start with a boot disk if it doesn't hang while it's booting! The OS is WindowsME. It also crashes in DOS, but not as much as in windows.

Actually with this exact same setup, it was working just fine for a few months since my last upgrade. Then one day, while installing a game, it rebooted in mid-install and hasn't been the same since. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that after several mis-reboots, the registry gets corrupted and I have to reinstall windows each time.

The bad part is that there are times when it works just fine for a day, and if I'm lucky, even a week. But when we brought it to the shop we bought it from, it stayed there and behaved for a week! It doesn't screw up WHEN I want it to!

I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

OK, lets examine some of this info.

It appears to work fine at another location. What is different about that location? Power source? Monitor? Other external devices not connected?

You are reinstalling Windows. What proceedure are you using? Have you run F-disk and deleted all partitions before a reinstall?

It worked fine before your last upgrade. What was that upgrade?

Something I missed the first time I answered, "I thought the long beeps meant bad RAM."
Do you get these beeps everytime? Have you been to VIA's site to decifer these beep codes?

I would suspect a couple of things right now.
1)Power source- either the power at the plug is fluctuating to a point below minimum requirements, or the PSU is failing.
2)Vid card is failing. Although that seems unlikely as it has been working for some time like this, it could very well be the problem.

As Ranchdog suggested, try swapping these items for known good ones and see what you get. As for the power source, you might try another location again and see if that helps.

Remember, you need to thoroughly test each change seperatly to get a fair assesment of the fix. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif You can't swap out the vid card and PSU, then take it to a friends house and say "Hey, that fixed it!"
Good luck

------------------
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Frank's Place (http://www.members.aol.com/frankscompsrvice)

[This message has been edited by bassman (edited 12-24-2001).]

I have 3 more things to suspect. Busted mobo, bad PSU, or bad vidcard.
I have a question about the power source. Can the power source or the outlet affect the computer even with a voltage regulator? Shouldn't the voltage regulator act up before the computer starts acting funny?

hehe, another weird symptom that came up was that my computer booted up once displaying only 128 of the 256mb DIMM i have.

oh and can ram be damaged by a mobo?

thanks.

What do you mean by a "voltage regulator"?



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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

The automatic voltage regulator (AVR), you know, the little box that everythings connected to that protects everything from damage from power surges.

Ok, they work to control the large swings and surges in the line voltage, not the 5 to 20V swings that happen all the time...the big surges are very damaging to the machinery, but the small swings will cause all sorts of annoying problems, especially with the power supply in the computer being weak or starting to fail. A good high end UPS (uninterruptible power supply) will condition the line voltage so that won't happen, the typical power strip won't, it will just clamp the high spikes down to a level that it won't damage the computer; plus over time they eventually wear-out.

Try plugging directly into the wall outlet and see if the problems diminish, or find an electrician to check out the outlet and wiring in your home.

I am inclined to think that it is going to be the PSU in the computer...

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mjc
Links list:Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

okay, i tried connecting everything directly to the wall outlet (this is to test the power strip right?), but it still reboots.

It might be the power supply in the computer.

I'm just trying to do everything I can by myself before trying to bring it to the shop, coz if it doesn't screw up in the shop again, i'm gonna get really pissed off!

Originally posted by onch:
My computer keeps rebooting by itself. But sometimes it:
1. just hangs
2. screen goes blank with a green bar at the top
3. reboots then hangs during POST.
4. before rebooting, illegal operation messages or the blue screen pop up.
5. reboots then hangs at startup, monitor goes on standby.
6. keeps rebooting with continuous long beeps.

I already bought new ram, coz I thought the long beeps meant bad ram.
But it still reboots. I tried tightening everything there is to tighten, and swapping the ram between banks. I removed all peripherals except the graphics card, 2 hard disks, and the CDROM drive (its not the CDROM drive).

my comp:
PIII-733 on a VIA APOLLO PRO mobo (694AS)
inno3D Geforce2 MX
256mb pc133 ram
2 hard disks (samsung and quantum)

HELP MEEE!!!HI THE TWO MAIN THINGS THAT MAKE THIS HAPPEN ARE THE CPU AND POWER SUPPLY WITH EITHER ONE THE PROBLEM WILL HAPPEN MORE OFTEN UNTIL IT GOES OUT ALL TOGETHER. HOPE THIS HELPS IRONMAN