Computer restarts over and over at boot

[grdax]

Very odd and I am hoping someone has an answer. I have alot of USB devices connected to my computer (7 USB external drives as well as other devices like scanner, mouse, keyboard...etc). My old computer with a 500 PSU never had a problem but my new computer with a 520 PSU (Antec Neo 80+) keeps on rebooting when I try to run on the computer. Only way I can get it to work is to disconnect all my USB devices and boot and once the computer boots into the OS (Win 7), reconnect all USB devices and I am good to go. Unfortunately it is getting pretty old having to do this every time I have to turn on the computer. Has anyone have been able to resolve this? Is it a PSU issue? MB issue? (Gigabyte UD3 socket 1155).

 

[SparksIT]

Could be a bad USB port, or USB device, thats causing just enough issue to reboot.

Do you have any USB Hubs? and are they self powered(do the hubs have their own power supply?)

Have you Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure? This will allow you to see any error Windows is throwing on boot.

Try plugging your USB devices in one at a time at boot, start with keyboard. See if it boots, if it does shutdown, plug in another device and boot again, do this till it fails and automatically reboots. If this does fail, shutdown and unplug the last device and plug in a different device into the same USB. If it fails again you may have a faulty USB Port, if it doesn't you may have a faulty USB device.

As a side note there was an issue with USB devices, notable with input devices(keyboards, mice) when updating Windows XP to SP3 (mostly on AMD chipsets). It would do the same thing of rebooting on boot, this did not effect USB attached storage. The only way to resolve the issue, apart from rebuilding, was to go into the device manager and uninstall all the USB devices, and reboot the PC, and let windows reinstall all the USB ports. After that it all worked fine, the only issue is that unless you can remote into the PC via Remote desktop, or VNC from another computer it will be harder to remove all the USB ports.

 

[eplebnista]

Wouldn't hurt to check BIOS settings for boot order either as it could be trying to boot off a USB drive rather than the OS drive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Let me guess, your old mobo was NOT a Gigabyte, correct? This is basically a known issue with Gigabyte BIOSes, they don't like to boot properly when you have external HDs connected. The only thing that I could recommend, is connecting all of your HDs to a powered USB hub, and unplug the upstream connector in the back of it, when booting, and then plug it back in when the OS has loaded.

 

[wuliheron]

It's an issue with bios in general. The whole bios system was originally designed to last six months and was never intended to be used with modern connections like usb. I once had the same problem after a bios flash with an MSI mobo (missing something important?)

 

[grdax]

Let me guess, your old mobo was NOT a Gigabyte, correct? This is basically a known issue with Gigabyte BIOSes, they don't like to boot properly when you have external HDs connected. The only thing that I could recommend, is connecting all of your HDs to a powered USB hub, and unplug the upstream connector in the back of it, when booting, and then plug it back in when the OS has loaded.

Yes. It was an ABit. This sucks if I have to do it like this everytime. I can get a full refund due to the SB problem. Maybe I should get a non Gigabyte if this is a case and there is no fix in sight.

 

[grdax]

Could be a bad USB port, or USB device, thats causing just enough issue to reboot.

Do you have any USB Hubs? and are they self powered(do the hubs have their own power supply?)

Have you Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure? This will allow you to see any error Windows is throwing on boot.

Try plugging your USB devices in one at a time at boot, start with keyboard. See if it boots, if it does shutdown, plug in another device and boot again, do this till it fails and automatically reboots. If this does fail, shutdown and unplug the last device and plug in a different device into the same USB. If it fails again you may have a faulty USB Port, if it doesn't you may have a faulty USB device.

As a side note there was an issue with USB devices, notable with input devices(keyboards, mice) when updating Windows XP to SP3 (mostly on AMD chipsets). It would do the same thing of rebooting on boot, this did not effect USB attached storage. The only way to resolve the issue, apart from rebuilding, was to go into the device manager and uninstall all the USB devices, and reboot the PC, and let windows reinstall all the USB ports. After that it all worked fine, the only issue is that unless you can remote into the PC via Remote desktop, or VNC from another computer it will be harder to remove all the USB ports.

Yes. I have Win 7. I do have a self powered USB Hub (USB3 one and a USB 2 one) as well as other devices connected direct (like Mouse, keyboard) to the MB. I will try it and see.