kam1nsk1

Hi

Wonder if anyone can lend some advice, my desktop has suddenly started restarting within about 30 seconds of being turned on.

We're running windows XP, if that helps. Haven't installed anything new either.

All help greatly appreciated

oscaryu1

Download Memtest86 if possible, and run. If not possible, remove one stick of memory and then vice versa.

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PC eye

If the system is a year or older you could try replacing the battery on the board as the low cost method to see if the original is weak and about to go. I've seen that one a few times. Without being on long high temps from something overheating can be ruled out except if some type of short to ground was being seen pulling the power down.

A bad cap in the supply, bad memory, problem caps on the board itself are the typical faults seen. Is this on a prebuilt system like a Dell, HP, Gateway, etc. or on a custom build?

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kam1nsk1

Its a HP, about 4 or 5 years old.

Never had anything done to it like battery replacements or new memory.

Is there any way of narrowing down these suggestions? Is it more likely to be a hardware problem than a system problem then (I know you can't really be sure but best guess?).

PC eye

After that amount of time it could be from a number of things like memory faults now being seen, a failing supply or board maybe both, a weak battery would certainly be no big surprise on an old system. That's a $2-$3 item at the watch/calculator section in a retail store.

On an old build like an HP Pavillion with the dvd drive being built into the top of the case with a flap seen on the older Pavillion's the supply in those is like a 180w and small. Plus with any older system you may be looking at multiple problems rather then being able to simply point out one thing in particular due to age along with wear + tear.

For that old of a system the battery is the easiest and cheapest item to replace if that's all it turns out to be. Both the supplies and boards used in those are proprietary and strictly designed to fit HP's old style cases there. The boards are slightly smaller then seen often with micro atx models where HP replacement parts would be the only option if anything more is needed.

__________________
Turning the Tongue into a Device Controller
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Sma...ory?id=5647175

Is EBay going out of the Auction Business?
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5626840&page=1