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My old comp restarts every 3-5 secs

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Hi, I having this problem where my computer kept on restarting before even entering POST.

I used to had this problem around 25 days ago, and it has been solved after resetting CMOS (I'm not sure how does resetting CMOS solves the problem, but somehow it just did)

Here's the full story of both event:

25 days ago, I came back from my holiday (it was a 50 days holiday) and during that amount of time, I never power my computer on, and the power switch of my PSU and monitor remained off, as soon as I turned on my computer, I heard a POST sound, sorry I couldn't memorize what is it, and after that, it's displaying this message "cannot detect boot device", I haven't made any new installation of both hardwares or softwares for a very long time,
(for like a year), the only changes I've been making is updating my kaspersky, I didn't even install new windows update, or touching any windows file.

What i've done is going in BIOS, to check out some of the boot priority, CD was coming first, then HDD, floppy, i changed the first priority to HDD and save exit, after restarting still no boot device detected, then I started to play around in BIOS, like doing a random check on everything, however, I had no idea on what I'm doing, since I not an expert, I don't understand every single jargon in BIOS. Then I've been unplugging my connections between motherboard and other devices, and sucking off some of those dust on motherboard/connectors, coz sometimes that helps, after that, I replugged all my devices and turned my computer back on, this time, I wasn't even able to get into BIOS, the computer restarts by itself after 4 secs powered on, so I took the motherboard battery out and waited 1min then putting it back in, after powering it back on, on the screen where its displaying your primary and secondary I can see my drives, then it comes with a message stating that I haven't set a new time, F1 to continue booting and del to enter setup (couldn't remember if it's del) then I choose to enter setup and changed my time, however after I saved and exit, on the next boot, on the page where it's displaying my primary and secondary drives, my drives' brand became unknown, so I took the battery out one more time and waitted a minute before putting it back in, this time, I chose not to enter setup, instead , I boot straight away by pressing F1 and that solves my problem last time, after that, I rarely turn my computer off, and I don't have remove the battery next time before it restarts. So everything was perfect until now @.@"

Yesterday night I turned my computer off and this afternoon when I'm trying to turn it on, it's up running without any POST sounds, then I turned my monitor on, I notice there were no display, it's completely black, I plugged off my VGA that is connected to the back of my tower and the monitor is displaying no signal, I turned my computer off by holding the power button for 5 secs and then powering it back on again, this time, since I had my monitor on, I can see that nothing has been displaying, and when I'm holding down my power button for 5 secs, it doesn't power it off, so I have to unplug the power supply that is plugged into PSU and took the battery out again, after a minute I put it back in and powered it on, then that restarting every 3-5 secs happened again, so what can I do to solve it this time, or do I have to replace my PSU or motherboard ? I really hate replacing motherboard >.<

4 year comp
CPU:core 2 quad Q9550
Motherboard:Asus P5Q-PRO
Ram:4GB Kingston DDR2 (kvr800d2n6k2)
VCard:Gigabyte GTS 250 Overclocked
PSU: 600W GW 600SEL
Case: Cooler Master elite 335
HDD:1TB Samsung 32MB cache

Your contribute is very much appreciated

PS: feel free to ask me I've missed something

More about : comp restarts secs

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Best solution

Take the battery out for 30 min instead of 1 minute.

Some things can maintain their configuration for a long time without power.

Make sure the power cord is out too, obviously.

That being said, when things work for a long time perfectly and they stop working, most of the time it is the PSU in my experience. They almost always are the first thing to die if everything is just fine for at least, say, 1 month of regular usage.

Is it possible you can borrow a PSU from somewhere?

BTW - 3 to 5 years is about average for top mounted PSUs.

I think the PSU is a Great Wall? There are worse brands but as I recall they used cheap capacitors. Could be the problem.

Still, the collection of symptoms sounds more to me like a bad MB. Since replacing the PSU with a higher quality one is a good idea anyway, might as well do that first... I'm just a bit skeptical that it will resolve everything.

Great Wall is Sparkle OEM, afaik. Not exactly topping the quality charts according to anything I have ever heard.

I am not going to guarantee the problem is going to be fixed by replacing the PSU, but a 4 year old Sparkle PSU is high on the list of potential stuff, IMHO. I am more surprised a Sparkle PSU even made it to 4 years than anything else.
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They have lately made some decent units. I think they are closer to FSP in quality, but mostly are in China.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=...

I think the two brands that use them in the West are Sparkle and Diablotek, and so they could easily be considered junk. But what I hear from the East is that they are considered a decent OEM there.

Depending on where the OP lives he may have been recommended that PSU based on a rep that we don't see here. I think FSP and Great Wall are the two top brands in China, or were at one point.

I had a FSP OEM 700w PSU one time. It probably couldn't break 400w in actuality. That was before I knew better than to get PSUs made by bad brands.

FSP will make whatever specs you give them, which means if it would be pure trash in operation they will still make it as long as they get paid enough.

Seasonic won't make bad PSUs no matter how much you pay them to. That is why I use this brand now.

I would rather not have to deal with an OEM where you have to hope the design was good and I would rather others not have to deal with that too if possible. Better to stick with an OEM that is never bad.

Maybe it is the case that Sparkle is a respected OEM in China, but if so that just means to me that I should take the recommendations about PSUs of someone from there with a grain of salt.

UPDATE:

Thank you so much for all those input

I was actually surprised that my comp was able to start again after taking all the parts off and putting them back together after clearing out some of those dust, however, I still think I have to change my motherboard and PSU later on, because this is a symptom of malfunctioning

PS:Sorry for the late reply tho, been oversea for quite a while
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