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XP-Pro reboots after logging in

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by skooboy 2 views

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Oh man do I have a weird one: on startup, POST goes well, I login, the desktop builds perfectly fine, 5 seconds later the PC reboots itself. I can boot to Safe Mode, so I can safely (?)rule out a hardware issue. In Safe Mode, I disabled the video board driver and all unnecessary startup files & services, removed all spyware, did a complete disk cleanup, and adjusted boot.ini to strip down the boot process. I've also booted to Rec. Console and fixed the MBR, ran 2 different HDD test checks (all passed), and ran System Restore to a much earlier date. Still, no change, the PC boots just seconds after a normal startup & login. Does a certain virus infection cause this? Thanks for any help.

5 replies

by greasywog87

You should try checking your bios - it seems like more of a hardware triggered problem - perhaps a bios virus infection. Try reflashing it by obtaining a utility from the manufacturers website.

by skooboy

Great, thank you. I hadn't yet considered the BIOS because the PC boots into, and runs welll in, Safe Mode. If all else fails, I'll do this.

by rcom

Since you can boot to safe mode, open control panel and select the system icon. Click the advanced tab and choose Startup and Recovery. Uncheck the button that says Automatically Restart. Now whatever the error is will be displayed. More than likely it will be a blue screen of death. But copy down and post the error here and someone will be able to help.

The other thing to do is run msconfig. Select the startup tab and uncheck anything that's wierd.

Scan for viruses and spyware etc...

by skooboy

Got it! Yes, I did this and got the error message "STOP: 0x0000008E". I discovered this to mean a RAM board or video RAM might be failing/failed. Now I will run memtest to examine the memory. Thanks to all.

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