Repetitive Re-Booting Problem

I have a Dell XPS-Z 866Mhz Pentium 3, with 384mb and a 20Gig hard
drive that is only two thirds full..

When I power the system on it tends to reset and start over at varying
point during the booting sequence. I usually get to a point where I
have to press "DEL" to get it to re-boot, and sometimes I make it as
far as my desktop, but then after a couple of seconds the machine will
reboot again.

At first it only happened occasionally, but it has been getting
progressively worse, and the last time I turned it on I went through
the re-booting cycle 8 or 9 times before it finally stayed on.

Any ideas on what to look at first? Could it be the power supply?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Searcher7 wrote:
> I have a Dell XPS-Z 866Mhz Pentium 3, with 384mb and a 20Gig hard
> drive that is only two thirds full..
>
> When I power the system on it tends to reset and start over at varying
> point during the booting sequence. I usually get to a point where I
> have to press "DEL" to get it to re-boot, and sometimes I make it as
> far as my desktop, but then after a couple of seconds the machine will
> reboot again.
>
> At first it only happened occasionally, but it has been getting
> progressively worse, and the last time I turned it on I went through
> the re-booting cycle 8 or 9 times before it finally stayed on.
>
> Any ideas on what to look at first? Could it be the power supply?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Darren Harris
> Staten Island, New York.
I could be several things. What happens when you try to boot into Safe
Mode?
To get into safe mode, start tapping the F8 key when you first see the
Dell boot screen. Select Safe Mode or Safe Mode with Networking when
the options screen shows.
If the system has been consistently shutting down then there is a good
possibility that the Options menu will be showing as soon as your system
restarts so you won't need to use the F8 key.

Darren, when and if you get WinXP to load up and stay on try rt clicking
MyComputer>select Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Uncheck the box
Automatically Restart. That might give you a blue screen with error message
next time this happens.
Post the error message here. Otherwise, I agree that it could be your
Power Supply.


"Searcher7" <> wrote in message
news:b819b3f1-83e1-4f7a-b700-...
>I have a Dell XPS-Z 866Mhz Pentium 3, with 384mb and a 20Gig hard
> drive that is only two thirds full..
>
> When I power the system on it tends to reset and start over at varying
> point during the booting sequence. I usually get to a point where I
> have to press "DEL" to get it to re-boot, and sometimes I make it as
> far as my desktop, but then after a couple of seconds the machine will
> reboot again.
>
> At first it only happened occasionally, but it has been getting
> progressively worse, and the last time I turned it on I went through
> the re-booting cycle 8 or 9 times before it finally stayed on.
>
> Any ideas on what to look at first? Could it be the power supply?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Darren Harris
> Staten Island, New York.

In article
<b819b3f1-83e1-4f7a-b700->,
Searcher7 <> wrote:

> I have a Dell XPS-Z 866Mhz Pentium 3, with 384mb and a 20Gig hard
> drive that is only two thirds full..
>
> When I power the system on it tends to reset and start over at varying
> point during the booting sequence. I usually get to a point where I
> have to press "DEL" to get it to re-boot, and sometimes I make it as
> far as my desktop, but then after a couple of seconds the machine will
> reboot again.
>
> At first it only happened occasionally, but it has been getting
> progressively worse, and the last time I turned it on I went through
> the re-booting cycle 8 or 9 times before it finally stayed on.
>
> Any ideas on what to look at first? Could it be the power supply?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Darren Harris
> Staten Island, New York.



As suggested may be several things.

I recently checked a system that kept shutting down and refusing to
reboot for long periods of time. I found the circulating fan attached
to the central processor chip had died so it was over heating.

I replaced the fan and all was better.

On my wife's system I recently heard the same fan cluthing into
overdrive and when I opened it up I found the fins were caked with
dust. A brush and vacuum later and all is well.

On Sun, 1 Nov 2009 09:14:54 -0500, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, "Daave"
<> wrote:

>I don't understand why you got rid of the cross-post. OP's issue
>revolves around a Dell that is running Windows XP. It seems logical to
>crosspost to the two newsgroups he did.
>
>Now, if someone from the XP group has something useful to contribute,
>expanding on your suggestions/questions, it won't be able to happen.

Keep in mind that his removal of the crossposting only affects his post and
the posts responding to it.

So the rest of the appropriately crossposted thread about the original topic
will still be visible in the intended newsgroups, and only those of us who
respond in this little subthread will be affected (and we could easily
restore the newsgroup header if we thought this discussion needed to be
propagated to the other newsgroup).

--
Nick <private.php?do=newpm&u=>

Prove your manhood: flame a newbie today!
<That's sarcasm, folks...>

Hi!

> I don't understand why you got rid of the cross-post.

In this case, it fails to make sense. There is a pre-operating system
problem here, as the OP is having trouble even getting the system to pass
through its POST.

I feel it is very likely that a fan is not running or that something is
plugged up, causing overheating. The original poster should clean the
system, verify that all fans are running, reseat all the expansion cards,
remove and reinsert all the cables plugging into the system and try again.

William

William R. Walsh wrote:
> Hi!
>
>> I don't understand why you got rid of the cross-post.
>
> In this case, it fails to make sense. There is a pre-operating system
> problem here, as the OP is having trouble even getting the system to pass
> through its POST.
>
> I feel it is very likely that a fan is not running or that something is
> plugged up, causing overheating. The original poster should clean the
> system, verify that all fans are running, reseat all the expansion cards,
> remove and reinsert all the cables plugging into the system and try again.
>
> William
>
>

It's actually dangerous to ask a Microsoft software "expert" a question
about hardware problems. The pained and vague explanations of all the
Windows stop codes attest to that. The best and most consistent
explanation for any Windows stop code is: "Something went wrong. We do
not have a clue." Rarely do the suggested solutions for stop code
problems work... Ben Myers

Hi!

> It's actually dangerous to ask a Microsoft software "expert" a question
> about hardware problems.

I thought it was dangerous to ask MS MVPs anything... ;-)

(Oh my, did I say that out loud?)

(...to all MS MVPs out there, don't get offended, that's a joke with at
least a hint of truth to it...and yes, I realize that there are some truly
good ones out there.)

William

On Nov 2, 1:37*am, "William R. Walsh"
<newsgrou...@idontwantjunqueemail.walshcomptech.co m> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> > I don't understand why you got rid of the cross-post.
>
> In this case, it fails to make sense. There is a pre-operating system
> problem here, as the OP is having trouble even getting the system to pass
> through its POST.

I don't think so. Because on occasion when it does make it as far as
the desktop there is still the possibility that it will turn off. If I
can last more than five seconds at the desktop, then it'll stay there.

> I feel it is very likely that a fan is not running or that something is
> plugged up, causing overheating. The original poster should clean the
> system, verify that all fans are running, reseat all the expansion cards,
> remove and reinsert all the cables plugging into the system and try again..
>
> William

I don't think so. It couldn't be over-heating because this can happen
when I first turn the system on in the morning. The fan is working
fine and all cards are secure.

Nevertheless, it has not happened for the last couple of days, but I
fully expect the problem to return because it has in the past.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

On Nov 2, 7:41*am, Ben Myers <ben_my...@charter.net> wrote:
> William R. Walsh wrote:
> > Hi!
>
> >> I don't understand why you got rid of the cross-post.
>
> > In this case, it fails to make sense. There is a pre-operating system
> > problem here, as the OP is having trouble even getting the system to pass
> > through its POST.
>
> > I feel it is very likely that a fan is not running or that something is
> > plugged up, causing overheating. The original poster should clean the
> > system, verify that all fans are running, reseat all the expansion cards,
> > remove and reinsert all the cables plugging into the system and try again.
>
> > William
>
> It's actually dangerous to ask a Microsoft software "expert" a question
> about hardware problems. *The pained and vague explanations of all the
> Windows stop codes attest to that. *The best and most consistent
> explanation for any Windows stop code is: "Something went wrong. *We do
> not have a clue." *Rarely do the suggested solutions for stop code
> problems work... Ben Myers

I still haven't established whether this is a hardware or software
problem.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.