[doire]

Hi,

My friend phoned me lastnight to look at his pc.

He is running Win XP.

When he turns on his pc, it gets as far as the Windows Welcome screen then there is a "clicking" noise and the pc reboots.

I ran chkdsk to try and fix any errors using a Win Admin boot CD. However the problem still happens.

I also took out the RAM (he only has one stick in there) and reseated it. Still the problem exists.

Also i can get into SAFE MODE or Last Known Good Configuration.....but the system just reboots again beofre it finished loading SAFE MODE or LKGC

So would i be right in suggesting that its the power supply?

The PC is 9 or 10 years old.

Thanks for any help.

Edited by doire, 05 July 2006 - 01:50 AM.

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It could possibly be the power supply but i doubt it. It would not hurt to try another PS if you can find one that matches the connectors.Those real old computers don't have the same connectors as they were AT style PS's and not ATX style. A bad power supply, a faulty video card or driver, and a failing RAM chip are often the source of these reboots. Also clicking noises are associated with the hard drive. Are you getting a POST beep that tells you the hardware is working? If so it is probably a corrupted boot file. If this is win 98 you can do a reinstall of the OS from the CD which should not lose your data on the computer. A good way to see if it is a corrupt file is to use a boot floppy and see if the computer is stable after booting to the "A" prompt. Type in dir and hit the enter key. If the screen shows whats on the "A" floppy drive instead of the "C" drive the hard drive is probably going bad. Insert the windows CD in the drive and at the "A" prompt type in D:\setup. If you are using a win 98 boot floppy your cdrom drive will be "E" because the boot disk makes a ram drive that is "D". Your windows cd should run and start installing windows. You might be asked if this is a repair install. Click yes. If the install does not start and you get a error message the hard drive has probably died.

SRX660

[SRX660]

It could possibly be the power supply but i doubt it. It would not hurt to try another PS if you can find one that matches the connectors.Those real old computers don't have the same connectors as they were AT style PS's and not ATX style. A bad power supply, a faulty video card or driver, and a failing RAM chip are often the source of these reboots. Also clicking noises are associated with the hard drive. Are you getting a POST beep that tells you the hardware is working? If so it is probably a corrupted boot file. If this is win 98 you can do a reinstall of the OS from the CD which should not lose your data on the computer. A good way to see if it is a corrupt file is to use a boot floppy and see if the computer is stable after booting to the "A" prompt. Type in dir and hit the enter key. If the screen shows whats on the "A" floppy drive instead of the "C" drive the hard drive is probably going bad. Insert the windows CD in the drive and at the "A" prompt type in D:\setup. If you are using a win 98 boot floppy your cdrom drive will be "E" because the boot disk makes a ram drive that is "D". Your windows cd should run and start installing windows. You might be asked if this is a repair install. Click yes. If the install does not start and you get a error message the hard drive has probably died.

SRX660