Hi,
I know from the topic you'll be expecting a question from a newbie about a BSOD or something, but please hear me out.
I built a machine about a year or two ago. About 4 months ago, when I switched the computer on in the morning, it got as far as the windows desktop before restarting. Thinking it was a BSOD (although I have set it to not automatically restart), I let it boot again. Same problem, only it didn't get as far this time. I tried safe mode - it restarted almost instantly. I left it in this constant reboot state for about 10 minutes, before finally it made it back to the desktop and was fine afterwards. Thinking nothing of it, I shut it down that night and forgot about it.
The next morning - exactly the same problem! I've tried a reinstallation of the operating system, and indeed Ubuntu Linux but both Windows and Ubuntu have the same problem, and sometimes it doesn't even make it to the point of actually booting the operating system, so I've ruled that out.
Sometimes it'll restart constantly about once a second for 20 seconds before making its way back to the POST screen. It's been like this every morning for about 4 months now, and I think it's about time I tried to solve it.
I've tried a different power unit, but that's all that I've really got at my disposal to test with. Memory checks (when my system is finally stable enough to conduct them) return nothing out of the norm. I'm guilty of slightly overclocking my CPU, but this doesn't corrospond to the time when things started playing up, and returning to stock/underclocking hasn't resolved this issue. My motherboard is running the latest BIOS available to me.
Can anyone possibly shed some light on this? I'm at a total loss as to what's to blame (I guess CPU and Motherboard are the likely culprits, but both are quite expensive to replace)
The PC is a Pentium D 950 3.4ghz with 3GB DDR2-667.
Many thanks in advance.
I know from the topic you'll be expecting a question from a newbie about a BSOD or something, but please hear me out.
I built a machine about a year or two ago. About 4 months ago, when I switched the computer on in the morning, it got as far as the windows desktop before restarting. Thinking it was a BSOD (although I have set it to not automatically restart), I let it boot again. Same problem, only it didn't get as far this time. I tried safe mode - it restarted almost instantly. I left it in this constant reboot state for about 10 minutes, before finally it made it back to the desktop and was fine afterwards. Thinking nothing of it, I shut it down that night and forgot about it.
The next morning - exactly the same problem! I've tried a reinstallation of the operating system, and indeed Ubuntu Linux but both Windows and Ubuntu have the same problem, and sometimes it doesn't even make it to the point of actually booting the operating system, so I've ruled that out.
Sometimes it'll restart constantly about once a second for 20 seconds before making its way back to the POST screen. It's been like this every morning for about 4 months now, and I think it's about time I tried to solve it.
I've tried a different power unit, but that's all that I've really got at my disposal to test with. Memory checks (when my system is finally stable enough to conduct them) return nothing out of the norm. I'm guilty of slightly overclocking my CPU, but this doesn't corrospond to the time when things started playing up, and returning to stock/underclocking hasn't resolved this issue. My motherboard is running the latest BIOS available to me.
Can anyone possibly shed some light on this? I'm at a total loss as to what's to blame (I guess CPU and Motherboard are the likely culprits, but both are quite expensive to replace)
The PC is a Pentium D 950 3.4ghz with 3GB DDR2-667.
Many thanks in advance.