Infinite Boot Loop

[anacree]

My computer has started going into an infinite boot loop. The fans/lights will come one for 1-2 secs, and then it will turn off again, only to do it again in 1-2 secs. Nothing is displayed on the screen.

The computer has booted twice since this happened, but only after it has sat overnight. After a while though, the computer will reboot (shutdown?) itself, and enter the infinite boot loop.

Thoughts on what this could be? What would keep the computer from even reaching POST? Processor overheating? I had this happen to me before, but it never had an issue booting. And it is weird that it will boot sometimes, and seem to be fine for a while.

Thanks.

 

[mauller07]

disconnect the power cable from the psu and press the power button to flush any power left in the capacitors in the psu, clear the cmos and then plug the power back in.

 

[anacree]

Ok, so I did that last night, removing the battery to clear the cmos. At first, the computer didn't want to power back up. I checked the power cable and tried again and it booted. I reset everything in the BIOS (pretty much defaults), and it booted fine into windows.

Sometime in the middle of the night it shut itself off, and was sitting at a screen this morning asking if I wanted to press F1 to update BIOS settings, or F2 to apply defaults. After I did that, it booted up fine again. I don't know what is causing it to shut down. I'm not ever in front of it when it happens. And there is no blue screen to give me a clue.

I have Windows 7 64-bit. What baffles me is that it will boot up and appear to work fine, and then just randomly shut itself off. I did notice when I was in the case there is a good bit of dust built up around the CPU and CPU fan...would overheating cause this kind of behavior? Or would it be more like a PSU, motherboard, or RAM chip going bad?

Thanks

 

[mauller07]

if theres a lot of dust around the cpu, check your ram does not have dust built up on it, dust on the ram can also cause sporadic restarts and blue screens etc.

also update your bios as well just incase.