I bought my computer bare bones online and paid for them to assemble it. three years later when i turned it off it would not boot into windows. so i thought i would reinstall windows works every time i have an issue. when i tried to install, it would stop and reboot and restart the whole process again. i thought it was my hard drive so i got a new one and had the same rebooting issue what could be doing this processor, motherboard, ram,power supply? it works fine for like an hour while i was reformatting the new hard drive. any ideas on what the rebooting means?
You do not mention what OS you are using or at what point at install the reboot occurs. Is your CD\DVD drive good, and your disc (both can fail to properly copy install files to the hard drive if one becomes faulty. The first thing you need to do is remove all external devices (printers etc), remove all PCI cards (NIC, sound etc),if using a video card and you have on board video also, then remove the card and connect on board. Disconnect any other hard drives and ROMs apart from the ones you use to install. Basicaly you just want one hard drive, one ROM drive, video, CPU, and one stick of memory. If you have more than one stick of RAM, reduce to just one. Try install again, if it does the same swap RAM for another stick and retry. If you still have the same problem, then you will need to start eliminating hardware like RAM, PSU etc if you can get hold of spares to try, and gradualy work down to motherboard and CPU.
Thank you for the info will try this after work today. I had to set up the old clunker last night so my wife could use it for school. The OS is xp media the reboot happens at random times during the reinstall process. It could be a few minutes in or almost all the way done.
I had an identical problem on a customers PC around 3weeks ago, rebooting at random times during the installation of any OS i tried to put on it. Dont want to scare you here but in the end i found it to be two capacitors had domed and burst on the motherboard. I had eliminated every piece of hardware more than once, i was lucky in respect i could get hold of spare RAM, Drives, Discs, CPU, PSU etc. Still i made a big mistake on not doing a visual on the motherboard first hence waisting around 5/6 hours checking and double checking other hardware (i should of known better). Hopefuly it is not your board. Reason i have mentioned this is to add it to the list of checks so as not to make same mistake as i did (check for leaks top and bottom of capacitors). Make sure all inside is free of dust and dirt also, especially CPU fan.
Yeah burst capacitors is the usual culprit, that or bad RAM. It can also potentially be a bad motherboard but with no visible signs. Try some different RAM if you can, or as said, if you have two sticks, try each individually. If no luck I would blame the board since you've eliminated software issues and the hard disks.
Update i bought more ram and it keeps rebooting. tried different ram combos all with the same result. i think my board is bad.
Well if you have tried the PSU and ROM drive from the clunker in the machine, and eliminated the CD, it looks bad for the board.
Most barebones tend to be cheap low-end microATX Asus boards. Need I say more? However, I will wait to hear what it actually is before condemning it.
Im not sure what kind of board it is. i am unable to swap out the processor cause i dont have another one. i did notice the processor is making a lot of noise is that normal?
It will be the fan making the noise, level of noise varies between different fans and condition. As long as the fan is working, then at present you do not need to be too concerned about it (as long as it is clear of dust\dirt). You do however want to make sure that the fan is not stopping occasionally as this will overheat the CPU and reboot the computer. You can remove the comps side and watch it, if it reboots and the fan has NOT stopped working, then it is unlikely cause of your problem. You could try removing the fan and cleaning and reapplying new thermal paste to CPU but unless you have previously removed the fan it should be OK. Unless it is a very very old motherboard, the type and version are usualy printed on the board itself, sometimes easy to find, sometimes a bit of looking about. Should be on the top of the board so no need to remove it.
