Restarting problem

[venney]

Hello.
Well i built the new pc for my grandparents. I put it all together, booted it up.
I insert the new xp sp3 cd that i bought, and it takes me to the format hard drive section.
I format the drive accordingly, and it goes through the xp setup. When it comes up saying your pc will restart in 10, 9, 8, etc it freezes on 'windows is restarting'.
If i then click the reset button on the pc, it boots up into the xp install, which all seems to go fine.

After im into xp, all is working fine, except if i try and restart the pc. It freezes on 'Windows is restarting'. I have done the clean install 2 times and this happened on both occasions.
The pc seems to 'shut down' fine, and boot up fine, but not restart. I cannot give my grandparents a pc that doesn’t restart properly.

I really am stumped from what the problem is. I can only assume it is some possible hardware issue.

The pc specs are as follows:
Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H GeForce 7100 Socket 775 onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB SATAII 16MB Cache 7200 RPM - OEM
Sapphire HD 3450 256MB DDR2 Hyper Memory 1GB VGA DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 GOLD XTC Memory Kit CL5(5-5-5-18)
Arctic Power 500W PSU With PCI-E 2x SATA, 20+4 ATX12V 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail Boxed
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition-SP3/SP2- Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - CD - English

The first time i did it, i updated the mobo drivers etc after the xp install, clicked restart and the pc froze, so i thought id give it another go from scratch in the hope it was bad luck.
I would love to solve this as soon as possible, so if anyone has any ideas id love to hear them. As for now, im going to double check all the wires are in correctly. I also had a look through the bios to see if there was anything obvious that would be stopping the pc from shutting down but i couldn’t see anything.
I am stumped.

[venney]

I should also say that i think it freezes again on 'finalising install' part as well, but when reset, the pc boots into xp fine. but still has the same non-restart working feature

i thought it was the disc maybe, but its spotless, so i dont see why. Maybe a dodgy hard drive? or mobo?

[venney]

I can now confirm that it is not just the xp i bought new, an old version of xp i have does the same.
Also, when trying to install other times, the pc just cuts out and restarts.

Do i have something faulty here?

[Gecko]

venney,

It could be a driver problem.
See if it freeze during restart after booting into safe mode.

Also check your Event Viewer logs to see if there's anything listed.

[venney]

The even viewer has some error along the lines of 'there was a non critical error during xp install'. it gave no useful information at all.

I was going to try and install his xp on a partition of one of my hard drives, but the pc just cutsout/restarts almost randomly. I am going to contact the place i purchased see what they recommend.

I think i may have a faulty psu and a faulty hdd. Oh, also, the pc seemed to reset if i unplugged one of the usb out of the back. does this indicate that i may have a faulty mobo as well?

[liljim]

did u try safe mode like Gecko suggest? it still could be drivers. Download all the newest drivers from the appropriate sites and check for bios updates.

then chances of the psu, hdd, and mobo all being bad are slim to none.

[venney]

Ok well update.

I unplugged the case reset button from the mobo and it seems to have stopped randomly restarting, I’m guessing it has a poor connection on it. So I was able to install xp ok from start to finish (no non-restarting install).

However, the problem still occurs. If i shut down the pc, it seems to be ok. If i restart it, it seems to freeze. I’ve had enough of playing with it for 2day, ill give it another go tomorrow (i will try booting it in safe mode and 'restarting' and seeing if it freezes. i updated the mobo and the gpu's drivers via the cds they come with but still no luck. i tried plugging my wireless adaptor into the pc as well, and it finds the network but wont connect properly, again i have no idea why. At least it boots up and runs smoothly now but still not good enough. Thanks for both your suggestions, ill post an update tomorrow.
Oh and another thing, it seems to run much better if i lay the case flat, as opposed to upright. I know this sounds silly but it really does seem to work better. Any idea what that could mean?

[Psymon]

You've been really unlucky with this new PC :(

The direction of gravity shouldn't have any effect on a PC.
*thinks*
If the heat sink isn't properly attached, or the thermal paste wasn't done quite right... then it could have an effect.

[venney]

As far as i can tell the heat sink is in tightly, but i will double check it.

I am doing everything right aren’t I? There isn’t something magical in the bios that i should have disabled in the first place? I’ve fiddled around with it a bit, turned usb keyboard+mouse on and the such.

I installed mobo then cpu then ram, then gpu, then hdd then psu.

Over the weekend i may swap my psu over from this pc to that one to see if it makes any difference (unfortunately the wires don’t quite reach over). If that doesn’t solve it, maybe i have a duff mobo. I will try a flash update as well. Im pretty sure the hard drive is fine as it all installed ok. I will try removing the gpu as well and see if it runs any better but as far as i can see there hasn’t been a gpu related problem.

[venney]

Ok another problem. I plugged the computer directly into the router and it wont connect to the internet. I thought it was a simple case of plug and play?
Do i need to chance settings or what? Everytime ive done a clean install before its connected straight to the internet no problem. i was going to do all the windows updates to see if that helped. im stumped, and annoyed!

EDIT:
Very strangly, i tried the wireless adaptor again and it worked. i did fiddle with some settings but the lan still wont connect. im going to do the updates and see how everything goes.

[venney]

ok i am convinced this must be a hardware fault. I tried another xp cd i had, and it does the exact same thing. It freezes on the screen where it would normally reboot.
I can only assume that its the motherboard not restarting properly. Surely two/three differnt versions of xp wouldnt do the same thing. Whats more likely, the mobo or the hard drive being off?

edit:
did a google search and came accross a post that seems very similiar to the problem i am getting.

'Cons: Even after updating to latest BIOS, set up for ACHI, this board doesn't recognize the optical drive. Set up for RAID, this board doesn't reboot when choosing to restart from within windows. It hangs with a black screen, or hangs at "Windows is shutting down" if done from safe mode.'

I think i may return the mobo.

[venney]

I read more on the motherboard last night. Lots of people are saying similar things such as the board hangs. I’m just going to return it and order another one. It’s annoying because it means i have to buy more thermal paste too.

Edit:
Ordered a new mobo from dabs.com and some thermal paste. Should be hear wednesday ish, so hope all goes better this time.