Win98SE/WinMe auto reboot on IBM computer

My uncle has an IBM computer with Intel Celeron 700MHz, 64MB RAM @ 66MHz Bus (checked with SiSoftware Sandra), and has WinMe installed (pre-installed with computer). The computer was working fine before, with the exception of the computer, all of a sudden, restarts by itself regularly about once a day or once every two days. At the time he was using DSL service from the phone company for internet.

Just recently about couple of weeks back, he wanted to switch to cable for internet. He got the self-starter package, installed the cable modem, installed the software that came with the modem (which is quite useless for expert computer users), and since then, the computer's been having more of the auto restart problems.

Every time the computer boots up into WinMe, after using or idle for about 5 minutes, even without touching the computer, it would auto restart by itself with NO BSOD

Since he had lots of stuff on his HD, I lent him my 1GB HD from the olden days in 1996. Formatted drive complete, did a fresh install of WinMe OEM, and yet it still has the same problem right after WinMe has finished its installation with nothing else installed besides whatever came with WinMe.

I then told him to take out all addon PCI cards and try fresh install WinMe again to see if it was a resource conflict, but the same problem still exists. He tried again with fresh install of Win98SE OEM, and the same problem still happens

With no BSOD, I couldn't even tell what the problem maybe. I'm running out of ideas as to what is causing the problem. Anyone else has any idea that might help?

well, I doubt it, but it could also be a temp. issue, check all the system fans out,....hm, I ran out of ideas too, hehe, but it could be an alternative,

Had a similar problem with amdK6 300 128MB ram. It turned out that the ram was faulty.

Run memtest http://www.memtest86.com/ and check the stability with prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm run prime95 for a day or so.

Also the PSU could be faulty, there are many possibilities here. Run those tests and post back how they went.

The CMOS battry could be dying.....

Tomay:
My uncle said he tried to do the memory test and it didn't work.

el_vago32:
He said he cleaned all the dust out for all the parts. The fans are working. So not sure if it is still a temperature problem

dave.green1:
I'll tell my uncle to try that.

He purchased the computer also with a friend. They both bought the same model with the same specs except that my uncle added a network card and an ATI All-In-Wonder. He was able to borrow his friend's computer and do some testing. He took his friend's RAM and inserted to his own computer but the same problem still happens. He reversed the test and put his own RAM into his friend's computer and it worked perfectly. So I think it is safe to say that it is not a RAM problem. He also connect his own harddrive to his friend's computer and it work flawlessly, so it seems Windows Me is not to blame either.

So now I guess it is left with the motherboard as the main suspect as the cause of the problem.

Anyone else has any other suggestions???

If there no fix for the problem soon, my uncle is gonna consider buying a few-hundred-dollar low-end computer. He mainly type some letters and use the Internet anyway.

Thanks, you guys, for trying to help.

Solid