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Geek Culture / Custom Computer Woes

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Terrorist Zero
18
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Joined: 29th Aug 2006
Location: Teh YouKai
Posted: 3rd Jan 2007 12:39
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I got all my computer parts yesterday, I lovingly placed them together inside a nice new case, and it made a nice whirring noise when I turned it on.

Windows.

It came to Windows XP Home (upgrade edition), put it in, format the HDD, copy the files over, restart the computer, then, "rebooting...", every time my computer gets to loading up from the HDD, it reboots. I've been through the XP cd's boot setup around 8 times now, trying different verification cd's (95,98SE,NT 4.0) and still it just reboots. It even reboots when I boot up the Windows 95 CD.

I'm in desperate need to find out what's going wrong, because, well, I'm like broke/skint/out of money (and kinda in the red too), and I'd rather not spend £50 or so for PC World to say, "Yeah there's something wrong, give me more moneh and I'll tell you WHAT is wrong with it!!!111", if anyone could just tell me or advise the best possible course of action.

Specs are:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (AM2)
1GB DDR2 Corsair Memory
Gigabyte S Series Mobo (w/6100 graphics)
Samsung DVD Drive
120GB HDD
380W PSU <--- Could this be the problem?

Please could anyone help me?

www.tornupgaming.com
The home of free games and game projects.
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Grandma
18
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Joined: 26th Dec 2005
Location: Norway, Guiding the New World Order
Posted: 3rd Jan 2007 12:48 Edited at: 3rd Jan 2007 12:49
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You know, i had the same problem once, turned out it was a pin* in the wrong spot on the harddrive. Don't know, must have been set to slave or something (the supposed master). Anyway i changed the pin to a random position and it magically worked on the first try.

I can't say for sure that's the same problem you have tough.

(*is "pin" the correct term?)

Comp : 1024mb Ram, 3.0ghz, GeforceFX 5800, 1,1TB storage
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SimSmall
20
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Joined: 7th Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 3rd Jan 2007 12:56 Edited at: 3rd Jan 2007 12:59
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Windows doing that is usually a hardware incompatiblity... 380W PSU shouldn't be a problem as I'm running a 400W as I write this... but maybe an idea to check all the power cables are in fully...

next idea, possibly a RAM problem... had one of these not too long ago... the BIOS could see it fine, and could see all memory on the stick, but when windows setup tried to copy all is data there. Crash, but was a blue screen stop error, not an instant reboot. Might be an idea to take your RAM out of its current slot, and put it in a new one.

Nothing else there looks like it would cause a problem, are there any other components?

AGP / PCI-E Graphics device?
PCI / Onbaord Networking device?
PCI / Onboard Sound device?
PCI USB 2.0 or Firewire card? (Not including USB and Firewire on the motherboard)

Finally, a final thought of mine, you've tried safe mode? Not ultimately likely to prove anything, but if it does get in... device manager might be able to point you to the nasty piece of hardware behind this.

Edit:

Quote: "(*is "pin" the correct term?)"


I think jumper is what you're meaning... but, heh, not really important
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Pricey
21
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Joined: 22nd Feb 2003
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2007 13:18
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when you restart the computer after installing do you take the windows cd out of the drive? this seems a bit obvious but you might be leaving it in, and its trying to boot from it.

:: 3Ghz Pentium 4 / Hyper Threading, 1024mb RAM, 250GB HDD, 256mb Radeon 9600XT Graphics ::


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Kendor
21
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Joined: 31st Jan 2003
Location: Malta
Posted: 3rd Jan 2007 13:18 Edited at: 3rd Jan 2007 13:21
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I had a similar problem whereby during the loading windows screen, it will just reboot. Every piece of hardware was blamed from the PSU overheating to corrupted Hard Disk. Finally, found out that it was a stick of RAM that died.

Memtest will run a number of tests to check whether the RAM is OK, just download and burn a bootable disk. Enable boot from the CD-Rom and it will start automatically.

Home computers are being called upon to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog.
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Terrorist Zero
18
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Joined: 29th Aug 2006
Location: Teh YouKai
Posted: 3rd Jan 2007 18:18
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Ah got it in the end!

Turns out that I needed to set up the BIOS to auto boot CD's and leave the XP cd in after if copied the files over, then it just went ahead and installed.

Cost me 20 quid to get that done as well T_T

Oh well, I've got my nice new PC running (I'm using it to type this )

Thanks for the help guys, I did try a few suggestions here first!

www.tornupgaming.com
The home of free games and game projects.
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Pricey
21
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Joined: 22nd Feb 2003
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2007 20:57 Edited at: 3rd Jan 2007 20:57
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wow i was right. almost.

it was a similar problem.

:: 3Ghz Pentium 4 / Hyper Threading, 1024mb RAM, 250GB HDD, 256mb Radeon 9600XT Graphics ::


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Phaelax
DBPro Master
21
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Joined: 16th Apr 2003
Location: Metropia
Posted: 4th Jan 2007 02:56
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lmao, classic!

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