Computer restarts after POST

yohed55

Baseband Member
Messages
42
Hello everybody, I am a beginner to most of this hardware stuff, but I have studied it for around a year now.

I have a pentium 3 desktop, its an old clunker, and I'm trying to get it to work. Every time I start it up, it runs through the POST and then restarts after I select one of the options at the "OS selections menu", that whole:

Safe Mode
Safe Mode With command prompt
Safe mode with networking

last know good configuration

start windows normally

sort of deal. I pick one of those, it will run through the list of sys files if I choose some sort of safe mode, or it will just restart instantly if I choose one of the other options.

I threw in a couple of Linux distros trying to boot it from a Live CD, or even install it, but it restarted right after the kernel loaded.

I tried switching out the Hard Drive with one of my friend's old ones, same thing happened, but we're not sure if his hard drive worked or not in the first place...

:confused:


Thanks a lot for any future help, I look forward to being a member of this community.

-Sam
 
You may be having a memory issue. Make sure all modules are firmly seated in their slots. You should also test them using Memtest86+. It's free and there are versions for either a bootable floppy or CD. :D
 
Okay, I tried using 1 stick of RAM at a time (i'm rocking 2x256). First time, I ran through with 1, same thing happened.

Its now dumping me at a screen saying "No Operating system found", saying press F1 to retry, no big deal since I don't plan on using Windows ;). So I throw in my Ubuntu cd and press F1, it reboots after the kernel loads, once again.

Next time I tried with just the other stick of ram, the motherboard beeped twice during the POST, and it said I had a memory error, I went into bios and set it to 256mb, Restarted, and it dumped me at the "No Operating System found" screen once again. So I put in my Ubuntu CD to boot from, and of course, it reboots once the kernel loads.

I haven't had time to do the Memtest86 thing, I will do that later tonight.

Thanks again for the help everybody.

-Sam
 
Has this ever worked? If it has, what were you doing before the problem started happening?
 
It really does sound like HD problems, although you say you tried another, so it could be the IDE cable.

Chances are bad sectors on the hard disk
 
Yeah, I never had the thing working, its one my dad got me from his work. I'll have a new(used) HD for it sometime next week.
 
Back
Top Bottom