Any computer techies here? Cause I sure need help.

[brentspeak]

The BIOS and/Windows 2000 on my desktop is so screwed up that once the intitial boot process concludes, the system reboots all by itself as if I just powered on-and-off! Basically, my Windows was freezing spontaneously for unknown reasons, so I played around with the BIOS settings without knowing what I was doing, and now even when I manage to boot into Safe Mode, the system reboots itself.

How does one figure out IRQ conflicts, reconfigure BIOS so as to not constantly have the system merely reboot itself?

[MichaelHarris]

1. do you have the manual for the motherboard/BIOS?

If so there is a jumper you can set to reset the BIOS to defaults. If not it is possible to remove the battery on the motherboard and wait a bit then put it back and boot. The ury is out on how long you have to leave the battery out.

On edit: turn off the computer unplug everything except the monitor mouse and keyboard. try that.

[ET Awful]

3. Great minds think alike :)

I went straight to the battery because the average user doesn't keep the manuals and gives me a blank stare when I say to move the jumper :)

[MichaelHarris]

4. LOL true but

I forgot that most newer board has a soft reset in the BIOS, you caught that. I guess I'm getting old.

[ET Awful]

2. First . . .

If you go into BIOS again, there should be an option to reset defaults.

If not, you can take the cover off your computer and remove the battery for a few seconds to clear the BIOS settings back to original settings.

Try resetting the BIOS, then see what happens.

[brentspeak]

5. I tried resetting defaults under BIOS

but it didn't do any good. Same with "load optimized settings".

I'll try the battery thing and the component removal as per the previous poster, and see if those fix it.

[Junkdrawer]

6. Do you have any old cards that are NOT Plug-And-Play???

If you do, you will need to know which IRQ/Port settings they are set to.

[brentspeak]

8. How do you find out which cards are in which IRQ/ports?

These weird IRQ conflicts happen to me all the time.

I should have bought a Mac.:cry:

[Junkdrawer]

9. If you could get back into Windows, you could see which...

"resources" they are set to in the Device Manager.

Most old cards were set with jumpers and/or dip switches. If so, you'll need the manual for the card. (Or check online if you know the maker.

A few cards would set these things with special DOS based setup programs. If that's the case, you'll need the setup diskette (and a DOS boot diskette).

For any of this to be true, the cards would need to be fairly old - 6 years or more type old.

[okieinpain]

7. 2000 has a default setting to reboot after a mem dump.

depending on how techie you are, I would remove all internal cards, except the vid and boot the system. if the system boots with just the vid, install the other cards one at a time until the rebooting starts up.

if it reboots with just the video card, you probably have a bad memory chip. if you're feeling really gutsy, you can try removing one dimm at a time to see if that fixes the problem.

good luck

go pack, go

[tridim]

10. Sounds like you have a boot sector virus

although it's impossible to diagnose remotely.

Setting things incorrectly in your BIOS will generally not cause your computer to freeze and reboot. Virus do though.

[Yuugal]

11. HI

You'd have to give me the specs of your machine, but one thing you can try straight off is to hold down the delete key during POST(power on self test). That will bring you to a screen where you should pick "restore default settings", then save and exit. The machine will reboot and hopefully you'll get into windows where you can look for conflicts. If you bios is trashed you can flash the new version by getting it from the net, making a boot disk and adding the bios file to it, and then booting from that disk and reflashing the bios.
Before you get all crazy trying the hard solutions though, my experience with building and fixing machines for friends tells me you should check the obvious first:

1) is the power supply fan on? are the vents on the power supply so full of mung(mung is dust mingled with either finger oil or cigarette tar) that air flow is restricted? If so grab a can of compressed air and blow them out. Same goes for the processor fan.

2) have you made any changes to your hardware recently like adding ram or a new processor? Ram that appears seated correctly in its slot but in fact isnt can drive you nuts. A new processor chip that isnt seated correctly against the heatsink also will lead to constant reboots. Thermal paste is a must for installing or reseating a processor chip.

3) did you make any big software changes recently? reinstall the OS maybe? or switch file systems on your HD?

4) if you havent done any changes recently and a problem just crops up out of nowhere like this, its probably a hardware failure: ram, motherboard, hard drive, power supply. The trouble is a bad stick of ram is gonna work right up until the system tries to access the bad area, then poof. Same goes for the hard drive. The power supply will work fine until it overheats then poof, reboot.

If you by chance use an ASUS motherboard, I can write you a book on what it might be. ;)

[0rganism]

12. So you really have two problems...

First, Windows is freezing on you. My *guess* is there is a corrupt or defective dll that's sending the kernel into hyperspace, or possibly one of the more potent viral infections if you've been engaged in "bareback browsing". Less likely is an overheating situation or a bad memory chip -- although both can cause similar effects.

Second, you did the nasty on the BIOS configuration, and now it's incompatible with what Windows likes to see. This is the more immediate problem, since it prevents you from addressing the first problem.

You've got some good suggestions from others on how to handle this, but I'll add one more. If your system supports a floppy drive, get a DOS boot floppy, and look for anything recent (i.e., dated after the BIOS failures) in C:\ and any stack dumps you might find in the drwtsn*.log files. These could give you insight into what's failing and why.