computer rebooting itself.. ?xp?

[imachode]

i just put together a new comp for myself as follows:

shuttle ak35gt2
ahtlon xp 1800+ (w/ retail HSF)
samsung 256mb pc2700 cas 2.5
visiontek xstasy geforce2 gts pro
sb live! 5.1
wd caviar SE 120gb 7200rpm
lite-on 40x cdrw
3 antec 80mm casefans

anyway, i've been extremely happy with this setup and have had zero problems with it in the first week of it's birth until last night. i had just finished playing some cs, and i got onto IRC to queue some downloads for the night. after about an hour of looking around fserves my monitor blacked out as if there was no signal going. i didn't have any mp3's playing or anything so i wasn't too sure if the system was still going or not. i reset the comp and it started up like normal, except the monitor blacked out again after about 5 minutes. after a few times of that, instead of blacking out, the whole comp would just reboot itself. the first thign i checked was the temp, and the processor was only at like 42º or so. the next morning, i booted up, flipped on winamp and listened for about 20 minutes until the system rebooted itself. the following time, it reboote in 10 min, and then 5. after that i couldn't even boot up to windows anymore. past that, the cmos wouldn't even complete it's self check meaning that it would detect the proc, detect the ram, but it would hang and not show the ide devices. after that i would power up the computer to a black screen. this concerned me even further becuase perhaps this wasn't even a software issue. after given 10 or 15 minute break, the system will boot up all the way like normal, and give me a short window of time before it begins to reboot itself and begin the process over again.

i've tried to run with the ram and proc way slowed down and it works as only a temporary fix. after about 20 or so minutes, the plague of beboots begin. i would like to maybe try to do a format and clean install of my os partition but i have no idea how to do anything in xp. if someone could point me to how i can best format my drive using xp, i could atleast localize a hardware or software problem. anyother suggestions will be gracefully accepted. my sincere apologies for this lengthy post.

[SnowSurfer]

i had this problem with xp a week ago when i was trying to reinstall my mouse drivers...my computer was running way too hot so it automatically rebooted. reformating in xp is just throwing in the disk and booting off it then selecting new installation (sp?) im not sure if thats exactly what it is but i think so. hope this helps

[imachode]

well, i did a system restore back a few days and had it running at fail safe defaults and it seems ok so far. i just pushed my fsb and my ram clock back up to par so taht they're no longer underclocked. i guess we'll see today how stable this proves to be. sure hope that the fix is as easy as this.


thanks in advance to anyone and everyone.

[Dave_7]

Originally posted by imachode

Nice name




Dave.

[imachode]

thanks for the compliment! it's my first.


on a side note, i think my comp is fixed. i guess the system restore did it. guess you can find out some answers when read around the forums. hehehe...