Hey.

My boyfriends PC has been having some problems during boot up and he is far too stubborn to ask for help so, here I am! I don't know much about what the problem exactly is. I do know it's had a few things go wrong with it in the past and has had a few things replaced. There was a problem with it restarting randomly a while back but it seemed a new PSU had fixed that.

But now, if it's been turned off for a while, over night etc then when it comes to turning it on, it will either freeze up on boot and require restarting or it will restart itself. If it's been turned on a while and restarted, it all boots up perfectly.

Any ideas?

Hello Rawr Welcome to PCHF

That would sound to me like a power issue. The best way to test would be to try another power supply and see if it helps the problem. If you buy the power supply from a local retailer, they should have a 30 day return policy where you can return it if it doesn't help. If the symptom you listed is the only symptom there is, then I have a feeling it is the power supply.

If putting a new power supply in shows the exact same symptom, then your best bet will be to start by taking out all the peripherals (modem, sound card, network card, video card if you have onboard video, etc.) and adding them in one by one until you start to see the problem occur again. You should also try reseating your memory (take it out and put it back in).

You can also test your memory with Memtest86. Click my link at the bottom of my post. It is a free diagnostics tool. You will create a bootable CD or DVD with it and it will run automatically when you boot to it.

Your testing is going to take days to really know for sure, because you should put each component back in one at a time and test the unit by leaving it off overnight and then powering it back on with just one more component added.

If after taking out all the components, you still see the problem with a new power supply installed, then it is most likely a problem on the motherboard.

I hope that all makes sense. Let me know what happens and we will go from there

Hey,

Thanks for the help so far. Not had chance to do anything you suggested yet but, Zone Alarm was just installed on the PC. Everything seemed okay during installation, restarted the PC fine. Then he did a scan and was asked to restart, again.
Apparently the computer restarted itself during boot up around 10 times before he finally booted in safe mode, and uninstalled ZA. Which has completly blown the theory of it working when it has been on a while, out the window, as it had been used all day up to that point.

Would you still suggest what you said in your post above? Or could this indicate maybe another problem?

Thanks.

So you mean now that after you uninstalled Zone Alarm, the computer has been acting totally normally?

No, the problem is still there.

I was just curious as to whether the fact that installing ZA made it worse, would indicate another problem as to what you previously mentioned.

Sorry if my above post was confusing.

I would still consider trying out the testing in my first post then.