Restarts on boot-up

[Jernej Klujber]

Hello. I have an older PC. It was stored away for about 2 years or so, but i recently decided to use it again. And now the issue. I turn it on, fans start spinning, after 2-3 seconds, it turns itself off, only to turn on a couple of seconds later. And it keeps repeating this cycle until you shut it down manually. It doesn't boot up, my monitor receives no signal. No beeps either. So i started to think about a faulty PSU, which kinda makes the most sense to me (keep in mind, before the PC was stored away, it was working fine, with no issues). I started removing hardware parts, one after another (GPU, RAMs, etc.). The "interesting stuff" happened after i was playing around with the RAMs. All together i have 4 sticks, 1GB each. Having all 4 placed in, the above problem starts (sometimes, after a self-restart, it stops rebooting and starts beeping until you again manually shut it down). Removing 2 sticks, the PC restarts itself manually ONCE, but at the second boot, it boots up normally, entering Windows and everything, the same is true with 1 stick. Tried this multiple times, always same result. You turn it on, restarts once, boots up fine after. Putting in another stick results in an endless cycle of reboots again, eventually ending in long beeps.

Any hints as to what might be the cause of this? Faulty PSU, motherboard...? I'm a rather average PC user, so i can't really come up with any plans on how to approach this problem, other then the things i stated above, nor do i know any possible solution. So, i need some help!

 

[HighTechProphet]

Does it happen if you swap the two sticks you removed with the 2 still in there? Could definitely be a bad stick of RAM.

Does the reboot problem still occur if you remove the GPU? An older PC that's been in storage could certainly have some corroding or degrading problems in every part, especially the power supply.

 

[Jernej Klujber]

Does it happen if you swap the two sticks you removed with the 2 still in there? Could definitely be a bad stick of RAM.

Does the reboot problem still occur if you remove the GPU? An older PC that's been in storage could certainly have some corroding or degrading problems in every part, especially the power supply.

I realize there's multiple slots and i can try switching them up etc., to see if the MOBO has some issues or something. I tried all 4 sticks in the same 2 slots, worked after 1 auto-reboot each time. I will try mixing up sticks and slots after i get back from work. Also, yes, the first thing i removed was the GPU. No change, endless reboot cycles followed by beeps. I guess since eventually with 2 RAM sticks and 1 auto-reboot windows functions normally, the GPU should be in a good state. But again, i'm an average user, so no idea.

 

[HighTechProphet]

My guess is either a bad motherboard, or bad BIOS. Reset the BIOS by removing all power connectors from the motherboard and removing the CMOS battery from the motherboard (looks like an oversized watch battery) and leave it out for about 5 minutes. Then pop it back in and try again. I would also try to download and update the newest BIOS as well.

 

[Lauw]

change the bios battery with a new one, you can get it for the same price as a egg box, so not much unless chicken eggs are rare in your country.

if you have a volt-meter you can check the voltage of the bios battery an new one should be 3V.
Had the same problem a few months ago and measured the battery it's capacity and was under 0.6V.

Edit: could also be a faulty power supply. a reboot after a boot ain`t normal either.
though its weird why a pc starts doing weird stuff after being unused for a long period.
only thing that would make sense is either a mouse has been feeding on the cables or the cmos battery has lost its capacity.