PC rebooting in all but preboot modes.

Have you looked at the electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard? Any of them splitting or bulging? These require a good vacuum desoldering system as the boards are multilayer and your regular temp controlled tool doesn't work so well on those types of boards unless you dial it way up, then you run the risk of damaging the board.

John :-#(#

Since you've swapped out the power supply and are still having problems, have you checked the motherboard for bulging caps? How old is the board?

By the way, I found this review of the motherboard at:

"CHEAP NOT SO GOOD

Pros: This board was an easy setup. Ok for very lightly used computing.

Cons: Died in 11 months. Mounts for CPU make it awkward in most motherboard trays."

Good luck.

As that board seems to be over 10 years old, it is probably time to move up to a more modern computer. I usually get a refurbished computer off ebay for around $ 100 for my usage.

The caps have been replaced twice on the MB over the years, and they were the first thing suspected this time. I also did a refurb on the original PSU (Tagan 420), before swapping it out with a new Elite 600.

The PCC MB has been a pleasure to use since it's first installation (~2004), with it's combination of IDE and SATA and PCi(for SCSI and GPIB) interfaces. Have never had to re-install an OS on it. The W2k system serves(served) as mostly library, and maintenance standard for repair of subsequent machines. It runs most text editing, printing, imaging, database, Autocad, board layout communication and lab instrumentation SW of its era flawlessly.

I haven't managed to whip the Alt-boot linux OS into any stage where it was as useful or easy to navigate, and a 'new' machine with W7 is not really a possibility, these days.

As for a new machine with W10 or later - anything that won't work without an internet connection, cloud servers or a recurring subscription, is just not going to happen here.

I'll probably end up just running the W7 (and some XP) machines into the ground, while struggling to get Linux to look more familiar and act more usefully.

If I could track down the hardware fault on this MB, however, I'd be over the moon. I still miss a W98/W2k/XP multiboot system that had to be put down around 2013(ECS KM400 MB). It also never needed an OS 'reinstall'.

. . . compeeyoudahs are probably the greatest waste of time and effort I could ever have possibly imagined. Pointy-headed business types just keeps twisting your arm, however.

RL

You sound really sure about all that . . . .

I'm not even sure you can install W10 or later without one.

RL

This picture reminds me of a problem I had. HWinfo was telling me that a mysterious chip was reaching a 73C temperature. By touch nothing on the board was close to this. So I removed the golden radiator to find that the pad between it and the chip was completely dry. For good measure I replaced it with a bigger black radiator with real thermal paste and a fan. It did wonders no more unexplained reboots and I was even able to overclock from 2.5 to 3.5 GHz this had never been possible since the board was new. My thanks goes to the HWinfo software that in fact gives temperatures of a lot of components in a PC. It was a lot of work but now when facing mysterious reboots I put a very big fan facing the main board a leave it cook.

An interesting feature of HWinfo, for this older motherboard, is that it mixes up/misidentifies the voltage readings.

CPUID HWmonitor does much the same

-12 is -4.608

-5 is -11.72

No problems with CPU core or memory voltage reporting.

RL

W10 can work without an Internet connection. Actually to install the lastes t versions of W10 Home if you want to create a local user you must install without an internet connection otherwise it enforces an online account. On that computer I would install W10 LTSB, runs great with these old dual/quad core processors.

As for the blue screen I would suspect the hard disk data or power cable. I f memtest does not cause a reboot (double-check), try booting from a Linux live CD with the HDD unplugged, if it runs fine I would suspect the HDD cab les, the HDD itself or the SATA controller. Maybe try another SATA port?

Another approach:

Phil Hobbs