Continuous boot loop

Deific · 18 Feb 2011 at 19:57

My mother has an old rubbish PC and it has got stuck in a continuous boot loop, which continues after switching it off and on. I've tried system recovery, starting in safe mode, booting from bios etc. what could be wrong? where should i start?

Thekwango · 18 Feb 2011 at 20:32

have you tried a good cmos reset? 1 or 2 sticks of ram? if 2 try removing 1 at a time and then trying it different slots, if only 1 stick of ram just try it in different ram slots.

Tonester007 · 18 Feb 2011 at 20:37

Do you get a BSOD? If so turn off "Automatic recovery" to see the error message before it reboots.

Philtor · 18 Feb 2011 at 20:42

What OS is the machine running? This was a common problem with machines running Vista by the way (Google: vista continuous boot loop).

Deific · 18 Feb 2011 at 21:04

It's on XP. I've tried a CMOS reset, didn't work. I'll try moving ram around tomorrow.

Philtor · 18 Feb 2011 at 21:16

Enter the BIOS and see what's going on. If it's an old PC as you said it maybe just needs the heatsink removed, cleaned and fresh paste applied. Then reset CMOS and go from there.. If you have the same problem then try 1 stick of RAM at a time.