I have no idea why, but when I installed fedora, it just keeps on restarting itself when it start's to load the OS. So I tryed Red Hat 8 it still keeps on restarting, so then came windows 2000 professional, I tryed installing that, and even then the computer started to restart. Finally I put Fedora back on and it's still restarting. If anyone knows how to fix this problem then can you please tell me how.

It's an American Megatrends 5000 Series computer
-PENTIUM MMX
-128 SDRAM PC100
-4 GB HARD DRIVE

Thanks

Can you give any more specifics about this problem?
Did you do any type of format on the hard drive before attempting to install these OSs?
Are you able to actually install an OS and then attempt to restart the computer?
What is the error, or message you get when it restarts?
At what stage of boot strapping does this occur?
This sounds like behavior from some recent worms...

It could be a hardware problem, such as a failing power source, bad RAM, loose cables, failing mainboard, etc.
How long have you had this computer?

You should go to the website of the manufacturer of that hard drive, download their utility to make a floppy, and test it.

This is definitely a hardware problem.

I recently had my computer shut off after random periods of time, and previously had one that kept rebooting like this.

Things to check:

Make sure CPU fan and heatsink are seated properly. An overheated CPU will exhibit this behavior.

Test your ram. I believe the fedora install cd has a memtest utility on it.

Your power supply may be failing. If all else fails, draw your conclusion on this and buy a decent power supply. A bad PSU can ruin a lot of your hardware...

My bet is on the power supply.

--Shade

AMI has some system diagnostic utilites, but it looks like they're all for sale. :/
Go check out their website http://www.ami.com/ and see if you find anything that
may be of use.

You may also want to d/l and try SiSoftware Sandra and see what type of information
that returns. It's very verbose, but if I remember correctly, you should see problem areas
with it. I must admit that in building and repairing comps without a lot of technical hardware
to do benchmarks, I usually just try replacing the hardware until I find the offending part.
Not scientific, per se, but it works.

I think that Maxtor's MaxBlast 3 will check a hard drive even if it's not a Maxtor. Their
website says differently, but I think I've used it on other ones.

You should try to find out what type of hd you have, and then d/l the utility like MaxBlast
from the manufacturer of your hd. It will test and tell you if the drive is okay. Don't use the
quick test, but rather, the advanced test.

After you've tested everything, if nothing seems to have a problem, then do a proper low
level format, or write the drive to zeroes. This will eliminate any possibility of it being from
a worm, or any type of software error. I've got a spare p/s here, but you probably can't
"drop by and pick it up." ;-)

The hard drive cant be the problem, cause i stuck it in a newer dell optiplex gx150 and it would boot into fedora perfectly, with no problems. and i stuck the hd from the dell in the ami and it still restarted itself. and i put in some ram from another working ami and it still did the same thing.

And the hard drive is a Quantum Fireball.

Ok I pretty much just used what the os had to format the hard drive. I formated the Hard drive on an NTFS partition when i installed windows 2000 and formated it to ext2 (not sure) when installing fedora and red hat 8.

And it restarts when it sais starting windows, and their is a bar above it. And it restarts when i start to load fedora/redhat in the GRUB Boot Loader.

Could be the mobo - the p/s. Can you can pull the p/s from that other AMI, or the Dell - it doesn't matter so long as you have the correct plug for the mobo? If so, you don't need to remove the suspect one from the AMI, just unplug it from the mobo and drives, and put one that you know works okay on top of it, and try it. If the sys boots and runs, then you've found the culprit. A new p/s shouldn't cost very much.

Well I don't want to pull out the motherboard from the other one, because the one that I'm having trouble with worked before i tried to load Windows 2000, Fedora, or Red Hat. It used to have Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP5.

Didn't say pull the motherboard. Just take a power supply from the AMI computer that works and try it in the one that doesn't work.

Now when you use this "trial and error" method, the important thing is to try only one piece of hardware at a time. Don't get excited and try a hard drive, then ram, then p/s. You just replace one part, then restart and check the results. Then remove that one, replacing it with the original, then restart. That also eliminates the possibility of the cable being loose. Then you try replacing another part, restart, etc.

You've already tried the hard drive in another comp, and a working hard drive from another comp. And you've also tried ram from another comp. So now you try a p/s from another comp. Just pull the side off the suspect comp case, unplug it's p/s from the mobo (you don't need to remove it from the case) and plug a working p/s from the other AMI box into the one which has the problems. This will eliminate the possibility of the p/s being the problem.

If the hard drive, ram, and p/s are okay - then it's the mobo. In which case you can then go to the trouble of swapping the mobo, and if it's bad, throw it away and buy a new one.

Maxtor bought Quantum in April 2001. Go here ->
http://www3.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...&downloadID=22
and d/l PowerMax and make the floppy and stick it in the drive and boot the comp and test the hard drive. Just to be certain, for the test from Maxtor is more accurate than the "shade tree mechanic" method. That will give you the satisfaction that your drive is okay, or the assurance that it's not. ;-)

A failing power source will rear it's head more readily under a load, running both the CD and hard drive as during an install.

Following that advice, if you have a hard drive on that comp that boots, you might try opening a console and issuing, as root
bash-2.05b# updatedb
That will put a little bit of a load on it...
Or compile something from source and run make...that'll top it out...

Sorry about that I missread what you were saying. I'm going to try that out, Swapping the power supply and testing the hard drive. And if all else fails then i'll try swapping out the motherboard.

I don't know about that particular motherboard, but most of them have something in the BIOS called hardware monitor, or something similar, that will give you output of things such as power supply voltage, cpu temp, cpu fan speed, chasis fan speed, etc. You might try entering the BIOS when you boot and see what those readings are, and if you don't know what to expect, just right down all that you see of that screen, post it, and we'll help you interpret it. Still, as the other guy said, you'll get different results under a load than when it's idle. Hey, if you bring that box over here, I'll gladly test it all for you real quick. Of course, I don't know where you live, but the trip might cost more than a new comp... ;-)