Hello i have a newer dell computer that was given to me by a friend it worked for a few days and then one day i tried starting it up. it will get to the windows screen where it says "prees f1 for bios" at the bottom but then it goes to a black screen with a blinking bar then restarts itself. its like it never kicks over to the desktop. just keeps reatsrting and restarting....i have had a couple of people look at it and a lot of different answers. if someone can help me with this i would greatly appreciate it. it would save me from having to buy a whole new computer.

thank you,
becca

Check the RAM.

How do I do that?

If you have access to another PC with cd burning capabilities download memtest86, burn to cd and run the test. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from the CD first.

http://www.memtest.org/

If not ,then if you have more than 1 memory stick try booting with just 1 stick at a timeto find the faulty one.

This could one of many problems and like lawli56 said the best thing to do first is to check the memory and would even check the hdd for problems! if the hardware checks out you can then try and do and n repair on the windows wich would 80% of the time sort out the problem!

if your computer restarts before reaching to OS pls do the following.
1) Disconnect all the drives (HDD, CD, FDD etc.
2) only keep monitor cable and keyboard cable connected.
3) start the PC and go to BIOS and check whether it restarts again.
4) if restarts pls make sure the processor is not over heating.
if it reaches to the OS and then restarts then try to check the memory first and then try OS repair.