Stuck in endless reboot loop. PLEASE HELP!!!

Mad_Mike

I have an eMachines pc which I have had for a few years now. About 2 months back it totally died and I replaced the PSU. The original one was very small, about 300w. I put in a Trust 450w and it still would not work, so I tracked down a brand new mobo and installed it and away we went

Now I am in trouble again!!

Recently the PC started locking up when left unattended and I would reboot and it would run for an hour or 2 and lock up again. This went on for a couple of days and eventually I pulled out the PC, opened it up, had a look at mobo etc and all seemed ok. Put it back together and it didnt happen again for about 2 weeks. Thing is, before I took it out, the left hand side of the case was pushed tight to a wooden shelf and when I put it back in, it had a gap all round, so I just put it down to maybe a heat issue

Yesterday it froze again and I powered it down and when I switched the power back on, it went to screen asking to select safe mode, previous working start, or just start. I chose to start it and it began to boot and within seconds the blue screen flashed for about half a second and it started again and then continued to follow in that loop, over and over.

I switched it off, then back on, tried again in all modes, but it keeps doing the same thing, even in vga mode, safe mode etc, so I watched as it loaded and each time before the blue screen flashes, it is loading a file called agp440 or something similiar. Immediately I remembered that I had changed my video card drivers recently, BUT this was only a few days ago, NOT before the initial freezing problem.

Opened it up, removed the video card and reseated it to be sure it was seated correctly. Also removed the 2 ram sticks and reseated, but still no luck. Its driving me crazy!!! Just wondering if anybody has any suggestions for me please??

Processor: P4 2.6
OS: Win XP SP2
Video: GeForce FX 5200 128mb

kaizersoze

Insert your Windows XP cd and boot the pc from the cd instead of the harddrive. When the setup screen appears press 'R' to enter the recovery console. When asked select the windows installation you want to recover by pressing it's number (usually 1).
If you have an admin password type it in at the next prompt, if not leave it blank and press 'Enter'.

At the next prompt type chkdsk /r (note the space after the word chkdsk) and hit 'Enter'. Let the scan run to completion. It may take an hour or 2 depending on your machine. When it finishes type 'exit' and let the machine boot normally.

Mad_Mike

Was afraid one of the solutions would involve this
Cant find XP CD, but looks like I will have to look a bit harder!!

kaizersoze

Mad_Mike wrote:

Was afraid one of the solutions would involve this
Cant find XP CD, but looks like I will have to look a bit harder!!

Any XP cd will do. If you can't find it see if you can borrow one.

unnameduser

Certainly sounds like an overheating problem. Does the left hand side of the computer that was stuck to the shelf, have air vents? Ie. Were they blocked?
If so, your overheated hardware may be unrepairable.

Lets hope that the suggest disk check works for you.

Mad_Mike

Air vents on bottom but not blocked at all as I cleaned it all when I changed the board about 6 weeks before. Board seems perfect and no smell of overheating unlike the first time when I changed the PSU and board.

Will try get XP dsk and see what happens