Hi guys,

I have put this post in what I believe may be the most relevant but, as is evident from the post below, it is merely a stab in the dark. Please accept my apologies if it is in the wrong place.

I currently have a problem with my relatively new PC. I have searched on this site for a few lunch hours and have found people with similar problems to mine but either their solution has not helped or their problem had slightly different symptoms.

So here goes....

I have a Dell Dimension 5150, Pentium 4, 128mb ATI Radeon X300, 1024MB dual channel DDR2 memory.

I am pretty much a novice with these things so please be patient.

The PC was left on for about 48 hours and connected to the internet and I awoke a couple of days ago to a beeping every 5 mins or so. The PC was in a 'loop' of trying to boot, getting roughly as far as the windows loading screen and restarting itself.

I unplugged the PC for a while and tried again but the same thing happens. I have left it unplugged overnight but the next morning the same thing happens. The problem now is a litle worse as the PC, on average, stays on for about 5 seconds before restarting on its own.

A few other people solved the problem by going into the bios but I do not have this luxury as the machine is not on for long enough. I have removed the MoBo battery for a while but that has not made any different.

When the computer is switched on it does not make its usual sound. Instead of the normal beep there is a lower beep which I have only heard since this problem started.

I have tried plugging the PC into a different outlet but that has made no difference and I have had the side off of the machine and all of the fans are on when the machine powers up.

That, i'm afraid is the extent of my knowledge. Pretty pathetic really.

If anyone out there can help I would be very very grateful. I would prefer it if the computer did not have to be formatted as I have stuff on there that I would rather not lose (home videos, holiday snaps, work etc).

Thanks again

Jon.

Hello Jon

Welcome to PC Help Forums

Have you tried tapping F1 or Del to get into the BIOS?
You have to do this constantly as soon as the pc starts.
If you can get in, change the boot order sequence to cdrom first, save and exit then pop your XP disk in and run a repair.

Thanks for the quick reply. I can get in (occasionally) but the PC switches off and restarts before I can get a look around or change anything.

There is no way that it would stay on long enough to run the XP cd.

Ok try disconnecting the hard drive and then try re-starting, again tapping the key to enter the bios.
You should get an "Cannot find operating system" error message.
It's strange why it should re-start when in the bios as windows has not yet loaded.
Anyway try that and get back to us.

Hi Wolfeymole,

Nope, that didn't make a difference. It reset itself before I could enter the bios.

Thanks again for the prompt replies

Jon

Can you see the POST screen long enough to see what make the BIOS is?