Mysterious XP Rebooting

Welcome to Just Ask Matt! - The IT industry’s answer to the help column, only slightly more medicated. Today, Charlie writes:

I have XP Pro w/SP1 + fixes. The other morning, out of the blue, it just rebooted itself. It had been doing this more and more over the past week when playing Real One arcade games. Anyway, this time was different. When it went to the XP splash screen, it rebooted again. I tried to use the last known good config, and it did the same thing: reboot… splash screen… reboot. I tried safe mode and it did the same thing… reboot… splash screen… reboot…. Any ideas how to recover from this without reinstalling XP from scratch? Could it be the MBR is messed up? Can the MBR be repaired in XP?

The first thing I would do is double check your CPU fan and make sure that is running properly. Once that possibility has been eliminated, take a hard look at any recent changes that you have made to the system. What really has me wondering is the fact that you are unable to even get into safe mode. If it was just a driver issue or, in many cases, a virus, you would be able to get into safe mode with little trouble at all.

Just for giggles, you might try booting off of a Knoppix CD. If you are able to do this with no problem at all, then it is not likely to be a hardware issue. Since your options are quickly coming to a close, you might try doing a repair install with your Windows XP CD. (This is with the knowledge that it is not a hardware issue and you had some success with the Knoppix CD, which shows us that it is likely a Windows-related problem.)

Now, if Knoppix gives you the same rebooting or even some freezing, then it is likely to be hardware-related and you will need to begin the process of elimination by removing all the hardware you can including looking at your power supply. If the PC boots up fine with all of the extra stuff disconnected, then begin adding one hardware device at a time until you discover which item is causing the issue. [Matt Hartley]

Do you have an IT-related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line and you, too, can “Just Ask Matt!”