PC reboots every time after shutdown!

[Stephen68]

I had a quick look at this, at the customer's home yesterday, as I didn't have a lot of time to spare.

It's and old MSI (Micro Star) desktop running XP and it's soooooooooooooo slow. Plus it won't power off.
You shut it down (by start/shut down or by power button) and after a few seconds it just restarts itself!

I have checked all the power settings and wake up settings and they all looked ok.
A quick google of the problem and found that the RAM is a possible suspect!
That said, I'm upgrading the module from 256 to 1GB as I expect this can only help with the overall slowness.

When I get it back to the workshop this week, I will also check that the power button is not somehow sticking.
It also needs a good clean out, I've yet to see a PC with so much fluff and dust in and around the fan.

Has anyone else come across a similar problem before?
Thanks for any input.

 

[thebige]

Have you checked the bios settings to be sure that wake on LAN is not enabled? I ran into this same problem and it was the bios.

 

[Stephen68]

Almost sure I did, I only had about 10 mins to look at it. Customer wanted me to wait until after the weekend to take it off site, as she uses Skype to talk to her son's family in the USA.

Memory module should arrive tomorrow, so I'll collect the PC from the customer and report back.
Appreciate the input, many thanks.

 

[FremontPC]

Ram upgrade is a great move. XP can be pretty laggy even with 512MB.

While you're cleaning it out, eyeball the capacitors. Sounds like the mobo is of the vintage that could have problems with that. Never a bad move to check this out, as well as the capacitors on the video card (if so equipped) as well.

If the caps all look ok, perhaps disconnect the front panel power switch and retest for the problem?

Was this customer a smoker?

 

[JW The Computer Guy]

Did the power go out by any chance? This happened to my server, and it turned out it was the power supply going bad. But I managed to stop the restarting by shutting it off by holding the power button.

 

[Stephen68]

Ram upgrade is a great move. XP can be pretty laggy even with 512MB.

While you're cleaning it out, eyeball the capacitors. Sounds like the mobo is of the vintage that could have problems with that. Never a bad move to check this out, as well as the capacitors on the video card (if so equipped) as well.

If the caps all look ok, perhaps disconnect the front panel power switch and retest for the problem?

Was this customer a smoker?

Thanks for the reply and the advice, will take a good look at the caps.
Thought the RAM would arrive today, hopefully I'll get it tomorrow.
Not a smoker as far as I know, but couldn't say for sure. Didn't get a stale nicotine smell from it.

 

[Stephen68]

Did the power go out by any chance? This happened to my server, and it turned out it was the power supply going bad. But I managed to stop the restarting by shutting it off by holding the power button.

If all else fails I'll swap in another PSU and see if it does the job.
And yeah, shutting it off by holding the power button in is the only way to keep it from restarting.
Thanks.

 

[PC-MOT]

I have had this with bios before too, try setting back to defaults, or remove battery and clear settings, may be worth a go.

 

[Stephen68]

I have had this with bios before too, try setting back to defaults, or remove battery and clear settings, may be worth a go.

Good call!
Will try that too, thanks.

 

[clayb226]

Is it Blue Screening, and set to restart on blue screen? I know it sounds simple, but the easy ones always get me. I had a video card that done the same thing, until I told it not to reboot on BSOD.

 

[Stephen68]

Is it Blue Screening, and set to restart on blue screen? I know it sounds simple, but the easy ones always get me. I had a video card that done the same thing, until I told it not to reboot on BSOD.

No, shuts down as normal, then just fires back up again without any errors displayed (as if a ghost had pressed the power button)

Actually, must check it for a possible "ghost in the machine"

Might resort to calling in an exorcist!

 

[ShinyTech]

Its more then likely a corrupted OS. Ive seen this many times before. What the computer is doing is something with updates. Alot of windows updates will cause the computer to restart after applied on the shutdown. If the certain updates fails it will cause this. The only way I have been able to fix this is to do a full restore.

 

[Stephen68]

Yeah, I might end up doing that.
Thanks.

 

[Stephen68]

Update:

I remove the desktop from the clients house and immediately notice that all the air intake vents are jammed solid with dog hair and years of neglect!
Not a breath of air getting in there anywhere.

I strip the machine, clean it top to bottom, check the BIOS and wake up settings, upgrade the RAM (which makes a huge difference) scan, scan and scan again.
I pull the start-up switch wiring from the MB and the problem is still there!

I phone the client and tell her that my guess is that the MB or CPU has suffered, due to overheating and as it's an old XP machine, there's not much more I can do with it, cost effectively.

She then informs me that the shutdown issue has been there since she bought the machine brand new! She had 3 service calls to her home from the vendor and was eventually told to power it off by holding the power button in for a few seconds!!!

Felt silly for me and sorry for her, charged her the cost of the RAM and wished her well.