Techies, please help.

[Pears]

I'm trying to fix a computer that keeps restarting by itself after windows loads. There's no warning or anything. The screen just goes blank and the computer restarts. This will keep happening over and over by itself if I don't shut it off by hitting the off button on the case.

I was thinking it could be the power supply, so I switched it with a working one, but the same thing still happened.

Next, I checked the CPU and motherboard temperature. CPU is 32 C / 90 F and MB is 34 C / 93 F. That seems normal. Just to try, I switched out the CPU with a working one, but that didn't do anything.

I tried switching out the graphics card to a working one and that seems to do nothing also.

My last guess is that it's the motherboard. Do you guys think it's the motherboard or is there something else I'm missing?

Here are the specs on this cheap computer:
ASUS P4S800-MX motherboard
Intel 1.9 GHz cpu
Old graphics card from a Dell machine
1 GB Corsair ram

I'm trying to salvage this machine if I can. I know the parts are pretty crappy, but it's for my parents and all they do on the computer is play spider solitaire or go online to browse web pages.

[1averagejoe]

Ehh...you didn't mess with anything in BIOS did you? I remember on my first computer I built I was playing around in BIOS changing a few things. Turned out the thing would automatically shut down and restart if it detects any settings that can cause damage.

Try resetting the BIOS. Depending on the motherboard, usually there is a jumper with some pins you've got to move around to let it reset. On my old motherboard it was three pins and a jumper between two of them. Swap the jumper to the other pin and it reset the BIOS. If you can't find how to reset the bios, usually removing the small button cell battery and the power from the power supply for a little while will reset it. Or if you can still get into BIOS load the default settings.

If that still doesn't do it, I say try reformatting it and reinstalling windows. If still it does the same thing, it's probably the motherboard.

[Pears]

It's not a virus because the hard drive only has windows installed and I never connected the computer to the internet.

It's not a monitor problem.

[Pears]

Ehh...you didn't mess with anything in BIOS did you? I remember on my first computer I built I was playing around in BIOS changing a few things. Turned out the thing would automatically shut down and restart if it detects any settings that can cause damage.

Try resetting the BIOS. Depending on the motherboard, usually there is a jumper with some pins you've got to move around to let it reset. On my old motherboard it was three pins and a jumper between two of them. Swap the jumper to the other pin and it reset the BIOS. If you can't find how to reset the bios, usually removing the small button cell battery and the power from the power supply for a little while will reset it. Or if you can still get into BIOS load the default settings.

If that still doesn't do it, I say try reformatting it and reinstalling windows. If still it does the same thing, it's probably the motherboard.

Windows is newly installed on the hard drive.

I'll try resetting the BIOS and see what happens. Thanks.

[1averagejoe]

*edit*
Hmm...you haven't tried another hard drive have you? If resetting the bios doesn't work, take another shot at reformatting and reinstalling windows. If still it doesn't work try out a different hard drive.

[Pears]

I've been looking around to find a way to reset the BIOS without using a floppy disc, but I haven't had much luck. I don't have a floppy drive. I know there are software programs that enable you to update the BIOS, but the computer doesn't stay on at the desktop long enough for me to run any programs. It just restarts itself over and over every time it finishes loading windows.

Any suggestions?

[anachronistic]

Try installing Linux. Use Ubuntu or something with a simple, live install.

If that doesn't work, it's probably a hardware problem.

[1averagejoe]

Like I mentioned...if you can't figure out how to reset the bios, usually the motherboard has a small battery located on it. Remove it, then remove the power from the power supply, let that sit for a little while to ensure all the power has been drained from any of the capacitors. Pop the battery back in and the plug the powersupply back in. That should reset the bios.

Lilwing has a good point with trying a live install or live cd of linux. Basically it will run linux(a type of Operating System) directly off of the cd instead of the hard drive. If that still won't work it's probably something other than windows, like hardware. Probably the motherboard.

[Pears]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'll work on it.

[boobaa]

Since you already have switched some parts, I guess you tried pluging out all the wires already...? i had same kind of problem, don't know what caused it, but pluging out all wires helped.

[Tedel]

You have a virus, bro. Take lilwin's advice and try with a liveCD linux distro. If the distro runs without rebooting itself, then it's a virus.

I doesn't matter if you don't connect that computer to the Internet. Plugging an infected pendrive is more than enough to ruin a PC.

[tooxshort]

Heh... He called you "bro" ...

[Tedel]

err... anything worng with that?

[Tone]

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[1averagejoe]

Pears, you need to change your avatar to a hot picture of you to end this confusion.