> Joel Fitzgerald wrote:
>
> Hi All, I've been in the computer game a long time but new to linux...
> I just got an old compaq 6000 PC, 200mhz Pentium Pro, with a 6gig IDE
> Maxtor HDD, IDE cdrom, Matrox MGA video card. Blank HDD to install
> linux on.
>
> I installed mandrake a few days ago fine, no problems the instalation
> went great. The from console mode i did a reboot command. It reset and
> came up with the GRUB boot screen started linux automatically then
> almost right away says uncompressing kernel and the machine reboots.
>
> I tried failsafe mode did the same thing. So thought easy fix, format
> the drive and reload linux back on. Did that, but on the first bootup
> after installation, the same problem occured. I've tried everything
> from different video cards to resetting the bios etc.
>
> Any ideas? I'm ready to give up.
>
> Joel
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
My experience with spontaneous reboots is that it is a hardware problem
(has been for me every time -- I'm an overclocker). So, my guess is
it's iffy hardware, but I can't tell you which piece is the problem. I
once searched for 3 months on a machine before I discovered my problem
was a bad network card -- I finally found it when the darn card got so
bad it would reboot another machine when I was transferring files. Who
would have thunk that a network card would reboot a machine? Had the
same thing happen when an ide controller died, and bad memory did it to
me too. Since it happens during a disk read the first thing I would
look at would be the hdd or the hd controller. Anyway, let us know what
you find so that I can file it in the gray matter. BTW, hardware that
is faulty may still operate with Windoze but linux is less forgiving.
