pc reboots at start up.

[souldriver]

My pc is rebooting before it manages to get onto the windows screen. It doesn't do it every time, sometimes it can go weeks with out doing it. What happens is i switch it on and everything a[[ears to be ok then before it actually gets to my windows desktop it re-boots then goes in to the improper shut down screen. I have no i dea why it would do this and i always shut it down as normal. The PC is less than a year old from dell, any ideas what could be wrong?

[Paulst30]

i had this problem with a laptop a while back and then the motherboard went. i'm not saying this could be the problem but you just never know.

Its process of elimination i'm afraid, if you have your Windows disk (unlikely from Dell) ok thats not going to work.

Whats the specs of the pc first then i'll try and help ya out. I love troubleshooting random stuff.

[Wolfeymole]

Do you ever get error msgs like the one shown here?

http://www.thecomputerforums.co.uk/f55/bsod-be ing-sod-4411/

[souldriver]

Paulst30: - i'm not sure of the spec tbh, all i know is its pentium 4, i dont know what motherboard is.

no wolfey mole i haven't had messages like that, i just resets then goes into the boot up in safe mode screen thingy.

[Paulst30]

i was going to say that if you have the XP disc, pop it in the drive and close down anything that pops up

Then go to Start then Run then type cmd then press enter.

A black screen will pop up with a flashing cursor, now type
sfc/scannow

This will take the corrupted system files on your pc, away and replace them with the clean files on the Xp disc in the drive.

If that works, then cool, if not post back.

[Wolfeymole]

Also try going into Safe Mode and choose Last Known Good Configuration like is shown in the link.

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z144/Wolfey moles-Pics/lastknowngoodconfig.jpg