Computer shutting down or rebooting repeatedly

Hi, I have a problem with my parent's Computer and hope someone here can advise me, it's a longish history but please bear with me.

The Computer runs with Windows XP. The problem started a few months back, the Computer would suddenly, and without warning, shut down. The power button was always still glowing, as if the Computer was still running, but other than that there was no noise and no activity. To reboot we had to cut off the power for a few seconds, otherwise the on/off power button wouldn't work.

Later the problem seemed to escalate and additionally to the original problem, the Computer would sometimes just reboot without warning or crash and show a BSoD, sadly I don't know what it said because my parents didn't take note of it.

At that time I still thought it might be a software problem because everything started a couple of days after a new virus program was installed. On another forum someone advised me to try reinstall windows sp2. I tried that, but shortly before the installations was finished, the computer crashed and couldn't be started again, it was just an endless loop of being rebooted before windows could be fully loaded.

I booted from CD, partitioned and formated the hard drive and reinstalled windows. During that the computer crashed a couple of times, every time I tried to format c: the normal way (there are two formating options to chose from, normal and fast). It finally worked the fast way and it didn't crash until windows was installed. It did crash again after, but not the same way as in the beginning, now it would just reboot randomly instead of shutting down entirely. I tried to install the driver for the sound card (VIA vinyl audio codec), however, during the last few seconds of the installation the computer crashed again (I tried a couple more times with exactly the same result). However, installing the driver for the graphic card (also by VIA) worked just fine, as did programs like Firefox. I tried to install SP2 (I have an older copy of Win XP were it isn't included yet) and the same thing happened, shortly before the installation was finished (I think while copying files into the Windows folder) the computer crashed and was once again caught in a rebooting loop. I tried to format the hard drive again and install windows, but now I can't even do that. It crashes every time when copying files into the windows folder during the installation.

Because the problem still persisted during and after reinstalling Windows I'm pretty sure now that it is a hardware problem (or else a very wacky software problem). Sadly I don't have any hardware specification for the machine, it's about four years old and was on the cheaper side, I would guess it's all standard on-board stuff all around. Is there any way I can find out what the problem is? Has anyone ever had a similar problem? Any idea at all short of buying a new computer? I'm very grateful for any help you can give me, thank you!

 

Thank you very much for the response PeteC, I will follow your advice and hope something changes. I'll post an update when I'm done. Thanks again!

 

Snark,

Welcome to the BBS. Pete has given you a great starting point and I would like to further add that the behavior you described may also lead one to the conclusion that your power supply may be headed south. You are going to need to embark on a process of eliminating what isn't wrong and Pete has given you a very good start.

 

All right, thanks again for the very helpful tips, hardware isn't exactly my forte, I only know enough to not embarrass myself when following (good) instructions .

Rockster2U, I think I have narrowed the problem down and it don't think it's the power supply, but thanks for the tip .

Now for the update, dust buildup seems to have been responsible for the constant crashing, I cleaned it and now it seems to work fine for normal use (no crash for over 18 hours).

I still can't install the sound card driver though. Every time I try the computer crashes and on restart, I get a message that pci.sys is missing or corrupt. I haven't tried installing SP2 yet, but I suspect the outcome will be similar bleak.

Following the links PeteC provided I did a hard drive diagnostic and got a few unspecific error messages. I don't know if the hard disk was damaged because of dust or if it is a separate issue, but I guess there is nothing else to do but get a new hard drive. Or does anyone have a different suggestion? Hopefully this will resolve the issue, or else it's back to square two.

Oh well, two good things came out of this whole mess, first I learned that this is a really great message board and second, my mom will probably start cleaning her computer on a regular basis now, to avoid problems like this in the future .

 

I had a similar problem. Initially, i booted in the safe mode, and did a system restore. That fixed it. However, when I tried to install zone alarm firewall again, the same thing occured. In my case, I think Zone Alarm was causing the problem

 

Sorry for being too unspecific . The hard drive is a Samsung SV1203N, I used the Samsung HD utility on a bootable disk to do a self diagnosis of the HD. I used an older version first. During the surface scan test lines like 'LBA 79079348 error' came up, the final message at the end of the test was very unspecific, simply stating that the HD has an error.

I tried running the self diagnosis again, but this time with the newer version. The error now read 'C: 23655 H:1 S:188 Error: ECC error' and a whole bunch of the same, just different numbers. This time the final message suggested to erase the HD. I used Hdderase and installed Windows again.

The motherboard CD is missing but I updated the chipset driver from the VIA website. Nothing helped though, the only thing that changed is, that now isapnp.sys is getting corrupted instead of pci.sys

 

Zone Alarm was installed on this computer too, after this many times of formatting the HD though, I doubt Zone Alarm is the problem. I sure wish it was that easy though .

 

Pete, I think you are right on the money re: the hard drive but an older version of Via's four in one drivers may also bring some temporary relief. I say temporary because this is an older 5400rpm 120 gig Samsung and the errors its throwing sound like Snark has some bad blocks. That will only lead to more bad blocks and continuing problems even if Snark's diagnostic software marks them as such.

Snark, as a first step, you'd probably be smart to replace that drive, especially if you're going through the effort to reinstall the OS, drivers and software. Your time is too valuable to take any chances with an older drive that doesn't pass muster. I really like Samsung drives and you should be able to pick up a 7200rpm Spinpoint drive for a pretty good price online. Your exact replacement (SV 1203N) can be had in a refurbished version but I'd stay away from that.

As a final note, you may be having some problems copying files from your CD (you didn't say that per se, but .......) and, if this is the case, yank your memory and clean the contacts with a pencil eraser drawn in the direction of the contacts, not across. This will take off any oxidation that may have built up over time. Then clean them with an alcohol dipped Q-Tip and re-install them.

Good Luck.

 

Thanks again for the responses PeteC and Rockster2U.

I picked up a new hard drive after work and went over to my parents to install it. Sadly it didn't work, it's the same old song with the new HD, whenever I try to install the driver for the sound card the computer crashes and windows won't start again (no corrupted files this time, just a blank screen somewhere during booting) .

I'm really at my ropes end now, unless someone has another idea on what could be wrong (or how to find out what the problem is) I fear they will simply have to get a new computer.

Could it be a software problem after all? The original problem of spontaneous crashes was most likely caused by dust buildup, they stopped after cleaning everything out. Could this perhaps be a separate problem with the driver, or the sound card itself? I would be very grateful if anyone has some more suggestions. I have decided to give it at least a couple more days before giving up.

 

Yes, lets slow down on the toss out the machine dialogue. While this can be frustrating, it doesn't mean that its time to deep six anything. I too think it would be best if you could post some information on the soundcard along with the motherboard. And, as Pete has suggested, what PCI slot is it in if its a card? (Slots are numbered in downward sequence from the middle of the board to the bottom edge). What other ccards do you have in there and what are their respective slots?

As an aside, how are you installing Windows? From a Windows CD or an image or what?

Patience Snark, patience ............ we'll get this squared away with your help.

 

Yay! Problem solved!

Thank you, thank you, thank you all so much! It all works again now! I never could have done it without you guys, PeteC and Rockster2U, you'r the best .

In the end all the troubles were caused by three diferent problems all mushed together. The repeated crashing was dust buildup (never happened again after cleaning), not being able to install SP2 was a faulty HDD (it works now with the new one), as for the audio card, that was stupidly caused by my inattention. After reading PeteC's post about having the correct driver I remembered that I was in a bit of a hurry back when I burned a driver CD after first re-installing Windows. I neglected to download the driver from the official site and instead used the first download I found. Big mistake, after looking closer I noticed that while the zip file is labeled as the correct driver, the folder inside the zip is not. A case of mislabeling and I was trying to install the wrong driver all along . I have downloaded the correct driver and now everything works as it should be. Thank you all again very much, I'm so glad this is over .

 

Heh, yeah, that was frustration talking, that's what two consecutive almost-all-nighter can do to you, I had to work all day and then work on the computer during the night and while installing Windows and analyzing/formatting/erasing the HDD isn't much work on my part it all takes sooo loooong . Needless to say I'm feeling much better now .

 

Nice job snark. I think Pete (as usual) had this pegged all the way, I just came along for the ride. Hopefully, your mom realizes what a fine job you've done.