K so, My bro-in-law got his PC around the same time I did.. about 2 years ago..

Its an i7 940, 8 gigs of Ram.. MSI X58 Pro-E motherboard. Win 7 x64

It had some bad ram a while back that was causing it to blue screen, got new, fixed that, then same sort of issue with a video card, replaced that.

Been running fine for a while now, but then started just restarting every once in a while by itself.

Has gotten worse and worse, now i cant hardly get it to boot at all, if it does boot up its usually restarted itself within minutes but most the time it resets itself before it even starts booting.. goes back to the logo screen.

Ive checked the ram, checked the video card, with the ones from my own PC... still doing it.

The lights on the motherboard, fan etc dont even go off, its not shutting down so to speak, almost like someone is hitting the reset button.

Unlikely its a virus Ive ran numerous virus and spyware apps, clean as a whistle, is used only for music production - Offline.

any suggestions at this point would be appreciated..

Cheers.

 

Power supply on way out or motherboard faulty. swap out power supply first and see if problem solved

 

Did you use Combofix?

http://www.combofix.org/

Combofix will restore your registry to default and fix system problems...

Or seems to be a motherboard problem

Ther'are smal tools to check all ports,power supply,motherboards and all the electricity pins,they are cheap:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-Diagnostic-Motherboard-Analyzer-Tester-Post-Debug-Card-w-LCD-Display-/180900247132?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1e7eb65c



http://www.ebay.it/itm/For-PC-20-24-Pin-ATX-SATA-HDD-Power-Supply-Tester-RJ45-RJ11-Cable-Tester-/200732808432?pt=US_Cable_Testers&hash=item2ebc9b94f0



http://www.ebay.it/itm/LCD-PC-Power-Supply-Tester-20-24-pin-4-SATA-HDD-Testers-/200719848154?pt=US_Computer_Power_Supply_Testers&hash=item2ebbd5d2da



Is a must if you manage and repairs your computers by yourself

 

Buy a MAC!!!

LOL!!! I'm just joking. MACs also have their limits +are horrendous expensive.

 

I'd go with a bad power supply too. Try it with a known good or better one. I've had machines that in the past adding an extra SATA HD causes non-booting issues, so if you're running more than one HD, disconnect any secondary drives.

It's possible it could have a motherboard issue, but I'd suspect an unstable PSU was the issue all along.

Edit: You could rule any virus issues by disconnecting all HDs and booting from a Live CD like Knoppix/Hirens Boot Disc etc.

 

Well this is not going to an easy fix per say but there are some easy steps to take of course

Grab a cheap VOLT/OHm meter

First things is to take the side panel out and then take the front face out of the tower

1. Check the power and reset button for any split or broken wires, follow the power reset and power on wires to the mobo and see if the little socket is loose ( had this happen before).

Take out the power on button plus it's cable out and check with the OHM leads
to check it just short one side and then on the other side ( the button side) touch the terminals with the OHM meter to make sure the cable is not bad. Then do this for the Power on button as well

2. Checking the power button. turn on the PC then hold the power on for 5 seconds... Does the PC turn completly off?

3. Check the Fan sockets on the mobo.... all good?

4. This may void your warranty on the power supply but take out hr power supply clean it up ( 4 screws to take the shell off it.

5. Check this power supply in another PC if you can .... it same issues appear then you know it's the powersupply

6. long shot test the cmos battery for voltage

7. Reset bios to default...


8. THE MOST CRITICAL ONE FOR POWER ISSUES this one I seen with my own eyes at my buddies computer store and COULD NOT BELIEVE it ... One tower he was fixing was no powering on... But all power supply was good everything else was good.. but MOBO would not turn on.. He took the mobo out, powered it on works... put it back in NOTHING ... okay so he checked the other panel and the mobo back was touching the other panel side to it was shorting out!!! hence why it would not turn on. Came like that from factory.

I could not believe it unless I seen it myself. The customer was not charged since he was a regular customer.

 

Random restarts are power supply or supply control

3 possible hardwear causes
Power supply unit fault
power supply rail on main bord fault
or if your lucky it's just the processor heat sensor is kicking in

I'll go over the processor's heat sensor since everyones coverd the rest.
Just check your cooling pack on your processor is fully locked in place. It's all it takes to set that thing off. When its loose there's a sensor on the chip that causes a power off to prevent damage to the chip, Power is restored when the chip cools down.


I had a Pentuim 4 that use to do that 10 years ago. In my case on the holder for the fan to the heasink, a clip had snapped. This problem always turns up when your in a hurry to put the machine back to gether after cleaning the heatsink


i7's use a stupid push and turn to lock thing. If it hasn't been in place right when you've locked it, the weight of the fan and heat sink will cause it to not fully touch the chip. When it's not in full contact with the Processor, it over heats where it is in contact.

Over heat, restart, seems random but its actually for a reason of the chip thinking it needs to the restart to cool down before it is damaged.



Or the others here might be right and you need to spend money on replacement power supply and main board.
Takeing off and refitting the heatsink and fan on the processor, costs nothing so try it.

A couple of notes to add on
on what dan's wrote
The CMOS battery only keeps BIOS settings, most importantly time. When it gose programs stop updateing and your anti virus panics. So thats not the problem.
For testing the power supply just try your's in the machine. if the problems gone then clame on the warranty or buy new.
I know of no real easy test for the main board exsept, if everything elses is fine thats the problem.
Normally when the power supply rail stops working the hole board is dead. not even lights and fans come on.

on decontrol's words
The machine he had problems with in the past after adding more drives. each power supply unit has a Wattage rateing. this is the max power draw per cable. Just cause it has a caple comming out of the unit with plugs for 10 drives dose not meen it can power 10 drives all at once. Your not haveing drive failures so don't worry yourself about it
He is however right about the LiveCD Boot disc proveing it's not a softwear issue.

chippy33 wins the speed race on the most obvious cause and solution but I'm still going with the cooling system on the processor hasn't been refitted right after being cleaned

 

Ive replaced the power supply, made no difference..


Cant even get the bios to come up now, just keeps cycling thru logo screen, I hit delete to go into Bios, it goes black, then 'restarts' back to logo screen... I get one system 'beep' every-time.

Have removed the slide out tray that has the Mobo on it, its sort of an odd, compact design, mobo attached to a tray that slides out from the case.

I also unchooked the cable for the reset button.. no difference.

Gonna clean, check etc the CPU, fan etc... Altho, i have never removed it, and it seems very tight... clean.

The machine only has One HD.

If it was a heat sensor problem, would I still be having the issue, as soon as I turn it on, after sitting, off for hours.. cooled?

Could it be the slots, for the ram?


this fucking thing is driving me insane.

 

Strip it back to minimum. Disconnect everything except CPU, RAM and graphics. If it's OK add back one at a time, until problem re-occurs. Check heatsink and paste. Reseat HS, RAM and GFX. Try new CMOS battery (unlikely, but worth a shot). Reset the BIOS to failsafe defaults. If you've still got a problem, then take the board out of the case, and sit it on a box (to eliminate any Case-M/board short possibilities) and see if it POSTs. Check for any damaged/broken tracks on the board. Try a different low power video card. If it's still all bad then it's likely your motherboard is bad.

They're all the things I'd try without getting out a meter.

 

After completely removing the motherboard, removing ram, removing CPU and cooling fan\sinks, cleaning, vaccuming everything, tightening all screws, connections... also removing\replacing battery, and replacing PSU..


Its booted....


Now, will it stay booted...


The great wait begins..


30 mins and counting.. Edit** an hour now.





Starting to look like it may have been CMOS battery.... and I say that, as it has gotten progressively worse over past couple of days, as if battery was on last legs... Possibly also the PSU, as i did replace it, but before i reset \ replaced battery, nothing changed.

Perhaps combination of bad PSU and confused bios...

Possible?

 

Well battery for CMOS is very important I know it's just a $1 battery but it could cost you a lot more to fix a problem that a battery causes.

So good to hear everything is good.

 

Thanks dan, and everyone else for some great technical advice.

The PC has been on all night, so I'm thinking I'm good to go.

On a positive note, It got completely cleaned also.

Like a new PC now.

 

Good work sticking it out.

For me, in the past, when something weird like that happens it usually ends up being a power issue or power caused an issue. I have learned to pick my PSU's very carefully and not just go with cheap price + high watts.