# Box Restarts on OS Boot



## sporkit (Oct 18, 2010)

Hi Folks,

I'm a web developer and run a FreeBSD web server out of my basement for testing purposes.  Recently I moved and took the server along for the ride.  When I power up the machine it seems to randomly restart.  I can see the output as the system loads up then suddenly it will click off and restart.  From what I can tell it's usually around driver loads, but the last thing I see is not consistent.

I've tried booting into safe mode, single user more, and whatever other options are available.  It took quite a while to get the software setup on this machine so I'd like to try to save it if possible.

I'm open to any suggestions on how to bring back the box to life.  I suppose a good first step would be loading up a cd boot distro and viewing the contents of /var/run/dmesg.boot?


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## roddierod (Oct 18, 2010)

Did you shutdown the box correctly before moving? 
My first thought with random reboots is hardware problems - power supply or memory.


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## wblock@ (Oct 18, 2010)

sporkit said:
			
		

> Hi Folks,
> 
> I'm a web developer and run a FreeBSD web server out of my basement for testing purposes.  Recently I moved and took the server along for the ride.  When I power up the machine it seems to randomly restart.  I can see the output as the system loads up then suddenly it will click off and restart.  From what I can tell it's usually around driver loads, but the last thing I see is not consistent.



System worked fine, was moved, no longer works fine.  This suggests something was bounced hard enough to make an intermittent connection.  CPU or DIMM loose in socket, power connectors, something like that.  Open, inspect, and reconnect.



> It took quite a while to get the software setup on this machine so I'd like to try to save it if possible.



Back it up.  You may have to put the hard drive into another system to do that.


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## sporkit (Oct 24, 2010)

Just spent an entire Saturday afternoon getting this thing back online, but I'm proud to say this case has been solved.  Long story short, the motherboard was failing to boot any OS I put into it.  I was able to verify this by watching the same thing happen when loading a live bootable os (Trinity Linux).

Thanks for the help!


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