Windows XP keeps rebooting..cant do anything!!!

[lpoollou174]

O/S Windows XP Pro. BIOS Version K7VM4 BIOS P2.10. AMD Athlon XP 2600+    512 mb.
After a power cut had to run the repair with xp disc. all went well then went to Microsoft for updates, installing SP2 (nightmare) got a couple of error messages not too concerned as all to do with outlook which I dont use. Now the PC keeps shutting down and rebooting. Tried to start up in safe mode (f8) but still getting black screen with "safe mode" in the 4 corners of screen? the goes black again and reboots. If I leave it on it just keeps hanging and rebooting.  After SP2 downloading got error 0x8007007f faled to load c\windows\system32\catsrv.dll. I googled this but then had to go to work.  my daughter tried to reboot to disk to do the repair again and it was letting her, then she said it just went off.. starting to reboot again on and off....I switched it on this morning and its doing the same, black screen, windows xp logo.. hen hangs and reboots.. can get to f8 but doesnt make any difference which mode its booted in, and also i saw a error screen pop up really fast.. took me six attempts just to read something about virtual memory? cant catch it all as its too quick.  What can I do to resolve this, its really doing my head in!!  The PC is 4 years old, i would really like to dump it andmaybe look at  gettin another but the kids have got too much data (which they havent backed up) on it..... any help would be appreciated. My house is dirty as I have spent all my time tring to resolve this nightmare ..................

[ale52]

A multitude of issues can present themselves after a "power cut" or any power issues for that matter.  The best way to troubleshoot these things are to eliminate what it might be...power supply (try another one), RAM (if you have more than 1 stick pull one out), swap out the hard drive if you have another) etc.  Start with the big components and work your way down to the smallest.  I know that everyone doesn't have all this stuff 

Alan <>< 

[lpoollou174]

Hi thanx for the reply.  I came in from work last night, having left thepc on with the recovery xp running..my daughter was supposedly watching it. anyway "THERE IS NO POWER TO MY TOWER"  Wot has happened?Have checked cables etc swapped them over etc no joy..help me pls....

[dahlarbear]

Start here No power or computer does not turn on unless someone has a better idea.

[lpoollou174]

none of these are relevant there is power going to vdu, printer etc the tower is dead.. all that the thread refers to are faulty connections etc. its the tower itself not the connections, I dont know what to do...help me pls somebody   

[brett74]

it sounds like you power supply is bad. you have a power supply unit on the tower and it could have gone bad

[niftyneilboi]

-if theres any status indicators on the tower [blinking/solid row of lights on the back or front panel of the tower], it will be helpful to isolate the prob as whether it is a real "no power" to a "no boot" issue. no light at all means no power,better check the power supply + mobo. if blinking lights are evident,then theres still hope.

[lpoollou174]

No blinking lights no blinking anything.........   Iam going to open this baby up 2day and start eliminating...like taking memory sticks out one by one, checking csu etc...but I dont hold out much hope...might buy a portable hard drive and try to save my info but I only know one person with a desktop PC and they live 20 miles away     is this a good idea??

[patio]

Borrow a known working PSU of the same or greater wattage and swap it in there...
This will tell you if you need to buy a new PSU.