Windows Vista won't run, computer keeps restarting

[melkinsbass]

Hello,
I came into my office yesterday, and there was a blank screen with a cursor. I reset the computer and the mobo bios screen came up and then the computer shut down then resarted. It kept this up until I turned it off. I pulled the HD and stuck it in a computer I'm builiding and Vista came right up. I pulled the CPU from the computer and it didn't look bad. I cleaned off the old thermal paste and put a new CPU cooler on there (I thought it was maybe overheating). I restarted it without the HD and the bios screen comes on and stays on. So, I turned it off, reattattached the HD and I am getting the same issues of Vista not coming up and infinite restarts.
Any ideas? Is my CPU wonky? Thanks for the help.
Matt

 

[Saga Lout]

Hello and welcome to Tom's Hardware Forums. One post will do, by the way. 😀

It might be the chip but if you have more than one RAM stick in there, take one out and if that helps, throw i away. If it makes no difference, put it back and try removing the other one.

 

[melkinsbass]

Thanks. I'll give that a try. I don't know why the question posted multiple times. I only hit submit once.

 

[melkinsbass]

Ok, I tried pulling the memory sticks. I have 3. I tried each one, but same thing keeps happening. Is there anything else I should try before buying a new CPU?

 

[Saga Lout]

It's worth buying a tube of thermal paste - you'll need some for a new chip anyway - and applying that to the CPU, in csae there's life left in it but it's overheating. Was the heatsink fan operating while you carried out your RAM tests?

 

[melkinsbass]

Yes, the heatsink was running. I had already reapplied thermal paste to the CPU when I put the new heatsink on. The CPU is an AMD 64 X2 5200+, which I've had for a few years now. I think I found another one for around $20, so I'm going to go ahead and give that shot. If it doesn't work, I won't be out much.

 

[melkinsbass]

Before I bought a new CPU, I thought I would try one more thing. I tried running Ubuntu from the disk drive. It started to work, but it would get to a certain point then the screen would pixel-ate. The mouse would still move and the drive sounded like it was still running, but nothing else would happen. My mobo has onboard graphics; could the onboard graphics have gone bad? Could this be the cause of my problems?

 

[Saga Lout]

It's a definite possibility but I suggest you try a cheap PCI or AGP graphics card to test the theory before deciding on a more powerful one.

 

[melkinsbass]

I've got a cheap pci card coming. We'll see if that works.

 

[melkinsbass]

Installed the video card and that fixed the problem. Thanks for the help.

 

[Saga Lout]

You're welcome but just remember, you're the one who fixed it. 😀