help - older machine endlessly rebooting

H

homIcIde

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 16, 2002
Messages
395
Okay so I left my old faithful pc in my mom's care when I left fool school this fall. After years of faithful, stable service it suddenly started having magical problems. First it stopped turning off properly, and would only turn off by cutting the power (turning off the PSU from the button on the back - my mom reported this while I was gone.) Then it would turn on but would no recognize that a keyboard was connected, and so would not boot into windows. Now it just endlessly reboots whenever the power switch on the PSU is set to "on." It makes a clicking noise every few seconds and the fans restart. I have checked the power connections on the mobo, and all seem to be set. Did my PSU just die? This makes no sense to me, as it seems to have happened without any tinkering on the inside

specs:
A7N8X
XP 2500+ @ 3200+
1 gig of Geil ram
6800 vanilla
antec case with 300w smartpower PSU
 
Yah, those old Antec SmartPower PSUs are notorious for failing. Do you have another PSU you could try?

300W w/ 6800?!?! weren't those things power hogs?!?
 
Yah, those old Antec SmartPower PSUs are notorious for failing. Do you have another PSU you could try?

300W w/ 6800?!?! weren't those things power hogs?!?
Click to expand...

Hello, ironically this system is practically the same system for one of my first builds.:)
Yes, the 6800 were indeed high powered cards. I think Nvidia recommended around 24 amps on the 12 volt rail and a 450-500 watt power supply.
 
WRT the 6800, I'm sure it was pushing the system's limits. However, it was only the non-ultra/GT version ran fine for almost 2 years before (apparently) failing, which is why I questioned whether or not that was the cause. All the other PSUs I have are currently installed in other systems. Do you think my best bet is to swap one of those over temporarily, or is there anything else I should try first?
 
If you have any other spare parts layin around, you could try those first. But yes, I'd definately try a beefier PSU.
 
it may not be hardware related.

Windows will continuously reboot if it detects a problem as a default.

If you can manage to get into Windows you can tell it not to automatically reboot itself if a problem occurs by following these steps:

* Click Start
* Settings (Skip on Windows XP)
* Control Panel
* System (May need to click "Switch to classic")
* Advanced Tab
* Press Settings button under Startup and Recovery
* Uncheck "Automatically restart"

This may or may not help, but one of our computers at work started doing this rebooting crap for a while (I couldn't even get to the bios) but after I just let it sit there for a week or 2 unplugged it started to work perfectly again (still not sure how that one happened though)

Regardless, I wouldn't just assume hardware right away, although it does sound like a possibility...GOOD LUCK!!!
 
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