I have been working on this issue for some time and am now at the end of my rope. My computer goes through a systematic booting problem when booting from a cold start, getting further in the boot up the more you flick the switch to turn off and on the power supply.
Mainboard: K7T Turbo Limited Edition
CPU: 950 MHz Duron
RAM: 512Mbs SDRAM
VIDEO: ATI Radeon 7200
The usual CD drives, Floppy drive and 100GB HD.
On my mainboard there is a set of 4 lights for a mini-post test display. When booting up the PC after being turned off for at least an hour it starts the POST Testing but does not complete. Instead it either restarts the POST testing as if the RESET button where pushed or it shuts off as if the power was turned off. If it turns off the only way to start it back up is to turn off and on the switch to the Power Supply.
I have found that the more it turns off and is restarted the further the system gets in its boot process. Taking about 4 attempts to get past the POST testing before you get the tell tale sign of the audio beep for the monitor signal to be sent through. From that point it once again takes 3-4 restarts to get the system to Windows, each time getting alittle further in the boot up. Once in Windows it will still do the reboot or shut down at random but it will also do two other things aswell. It will freeze so that the monitor is still on and you can see the desktop but it does not respond or the monitor will turn off as if the monitor signal was lost but all the fans in the tower continue to run.
So now you know what I am dealing with so lets get to the troubleshooting.
I have disconnected all components from the Mainboard excluding the CPU and Heatsink but including the Power supply and all IDE, DIMMS and Cards. Then systematically connected each and watched the boot up.
*Power and Mainboard only - POST gets to checking for ram and stays there - NO REBOOT
*Power/Mainboard and 1 stick of RAM - POST gets to checking for other components - May reboot but not as often.
*Power/Mainboard/RAM/Video Card - POST Completes with some rebooting and gets to DOS - HARD DISK FAILURE MESSAGE.
*Power/Mainboard/RAM/Vid/CD-FLOPPY - Continues to restart if booting from cold untill it gets to the point of checking for Bootable files. If no floppy or bootable CD in drives screen displays error and waits for input of bootable files.
*Everything includine HD - Continuous rebooting getting further in boot up process - still rebooting after windows loads.
*Flashed CMOS but had no effect on constant rebooting. During one of the times where the computer stayed booted up long enough I managed to download and update the CMOS and BIOS but did not help.
That is everything that I know up to this point. Othen eliminating a few things I am at a loss as to what the problem is or what I need to do to fix it. Since the system restarts while in POST without the HD connected then it is not a virus or anything on the hard drive but since the boot up process gets further along the more the system is turned off and on then it cannot be an issue with CPU TEMP because the more the system is turned off and on the hotter the CPU gets. I have 2 sticks of RAM that I have tested with and the rebooting still occurs regardless of which stick is being used at that time. Also monitor connection is achived once the POST testing gets far enough along to check for Vid Card.
Any Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
