Reboots all the time (by 2 users)

Thank you very much. I will try your suggestions.

Rick

...

If anyone is having the kind of problem I am having and is searching for an
answer to solve it, I suggest reading the post below. It's in there all
right. I got my A+ certification in 2000 (used the Micheal Meyers 3rd
edition embellished with internet information) but I soon after gave up on
the whole computer career thing and forgot about it through disuse.

I've got Windows XP professional and a foxconn allied 400 watt switching
power supply, with a fan on it facing the cpu fan. It's AMD approved for the
processor. You know the one? It's the popular seller on newegg. I built the
computer myself. It's got the shark shaped 3com cable modem. Macronix
MX98715 based ethernet adapter card.
Heres the story: I will begin by saying that I have had no problems with my
computer until I
installed a new and identical 256K DDR PC2100 Micron memory stick in my
Elite (ECS)
K7S5A mainboard. That's when my problems started. Since then, I get an extra
beep a little later in bios boot up for the CD Rom check aside from the
first beep after the main memory check. I've got an old CDROM and that's the
only CD Rom. It came with a 1999 emachines. It's slow. Processor is Athlon
XP Thoroughbred 2000+ and is running 122 degrees farenheit the last time I
checked bios yesterday and I don't have any additional cooling fans and the
tower is located in a tight spot on the floor. Wife often puts vaccums in
front of it. Before this problem started becomming frequent, not too long
ago, I blew the dust with liquid air over all the boards and sockets but
didn't remove any boards. I'll try doing that again except I'll also remove
the add on boards and blow the inside of the PCI and AGP sockets. I've got
the Santa Cruz sound card and my video card is the abit siluro MX400 which
never passed the microsoft hardware compatibility test. Most of the crashes
(spontaneoul reboots) upon powering back to the desk top microsoft says that
the computer has recovered from a serious problem and to click here for more
information. When I do it says it detects a driver problem but doesn't have
the information as to which driver caused the problem. Perhaps it's my video
card. No problems show up in device manager. I've got NAV 2003 and it's up
to date. I've also got the most recent ZAP. The reason I think it could be a
virus is that I know for a fact through using spyware remover software that
I've got spyware on my computer. Also my MS update keeps prodding me to
install Mydoom and Doomjuice virus (spyware) remover tool because since I am
receiving the message from MS update to install it, my computer is probably
infected with those viruses. I download and insatll it and reboot and the
same update keeps telling me the same thing. Not even system restore works.
After it is done, no matter which date I choose, it always says that it was
unable to restore to that date I specified. The problem seems to be that any
changes I need to make in my software requires the computer to reboot but
the computer is not rebooting correctly. I'm starting to think this is a
hardware problem. I've also got a usb interface card which converts my usb
1.1 limited mainboard to usb 2.0. What makes my computer lock up the most is
when I use my most processor intensive program, which does audio processing.

Rick

...

Sounds like a hardware issue. Start from the basic hardware... meaning just
one stick of (good)RAM, video card, power supply, cpu... you get the
picture?!?! (remove all PCI cards) See if this works... if yes, check the
event viewer, also, you "might" want to start fresh and reinstall XP and
disable the auto-reboot ... if NOT, you know that the problem should be one
of the following:

1)Bad RAM
2)Bad power supply
3)Bad cpu
4)Sometimes bad video card (re-seating might help)
5)Bad motherboard

I understand checking for bad hardware can be a pain because of finding
other parts to test... I guess starting of with something that doesn't cost
money would be a good beginning. Like I mentioned above fresh install of xp
with basic hardware.

Hope this helps... good luck and let us know about the out come!

...

Hi Richard,

It's not a virus or an OS issue. You have a hardware problem. That's the
only way you are going to freeze at the bios screen. Power down and give
the case a light smack and see if it gets better or worse on power up.

I've had bad motherboards do just what you are describing. A light
jarring will often get a bad motherboard going again temporarily.
If the smack changes anything, I'd give it a 90% that the motherboard is
bad (broken solder joint or bad trace). Before tossing the motherboard,
I'd re-seat all cards, memory and the cpu. I'd also try different memory.

Bill

> might have spread further than the hard drive.