I inherited a Gateway 825GM Media Center Edition. It had Windows XP Pro installed from Gateway before that had become hopelessly corrupted. After reformatting and installing a new copy of the XP Pro, any further installations of software restarted numerous problems of such varying degrees it was incredible. Sent it to a repair shop and it came back working with just the basic OS loaded and working and a detailed letter stating that this computer had no hardware problems and that the problems were software associated.

Started reloading various software (most of which worked fine as long as it was installed via a disk) but IE-6 began to cause the computer to lock-up or freeze (No keyboard function, no mouse function ect...). Very few programs were loaded so the 250Gb SATA HD (Factory install) was close to empty. The only problem I could find was an issue with my CD player/writer. I replaced it with a brand new Sony and it works fine. Got everything I needed that was important back on the computer and soon determined that my Video Card was sub-par for the purposes I needed. So I replaced an ATI Radeon x300 with an ATI Radeon HD 2400 (DX10 High Definition capable card, installed drivers from ATI disk before DX10 was finalized). It worked fine for a while.

One Fine Day in early spring I opened IE 6 and it locked up and when I re-booted it sent me into a BOOT-LOOP. Normal start, then black screen with boot method choice, loading screen then Blue screen of death and back again over and over.

Often as many as three dozen restarts might produce one successful boot. I changed my hard drive to a brand new one (same company SATA 350Gb). Did a clean install of Windows Vista Home Premium and it worked fine as I reloaded all of my important programs. The VERY FIRST time I opened the new version IE 7 it locked up / froze again. Back to the same old problem, restart with the power button then BOOT-LOOP again and again. One successful reboot in dozens.

System:
Gateway 825GM Media Center ( I bought one Gateway before that did not work right for 2 years,,, swore I'd never BUY another one and DID NOT BUY this one.)

1024 DDR2 RAM
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium Version 6.0.6000 Build 6000 SP1 added.
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.4GHz 3399Mhz. 1 core
Video Card: ATI RADEON HD 2400 256Mb RAM
Hard Drive: SATA 350Gb (brand new)
Bay #1 Drive D: Sony DVD RW DRU-840A ATA Divice (Brand new)
Bay #2 Drive E: HL-DT-ST-DVD-ROM GDR8163B ATA (origional equip This is the one BIOS ties to boot from DVD with if I select that option.)
Bay #3 : Digital Media Manager ( USB, SD/MMC/SM/MS/MS-Pro, CF/Microdrive) <this is not used by me>
Power Supply: (I cannot verify) but I believe it is a 450W
DirectX 10

Motherboard: I don't know but it is expandible up to 4GB RAM, has only 1 PCI-e slot

I have tried WITHOUT SUCCESS:
Cleaning the case, (there is no dirt/dust anywhere in it now)

System Restore (chose Safe Mode to do system restore, always goes back to freeezing then boot-loop).

I have tried (on the OLD hard drive) reformatting and re-install of the OS (clean install).

Most of the Hardware I have changed is new and did work properly but disconnected their cables one by one anyways without success.

I'm down to pulling my hair and teeth out, thinking:

Maybe my Mother Board has been corrupted after about 3 years of life.

Maybe my Power Supply is too weak.

Maybe if I disconnected the Digital Media Manager (which I never use) and the Drive E:\ DVD player that BIOS sometimes uses to boot from the disk, It might help the power supply by taking some of the load off of it.

Now I must tell you when I try to start the computer up I DO get power button illumination, I do get Video on my monitor, I do get all the bells and beeps and I do hear the Hard Drive spinning up. All the Fans are working. (This leads me to believe the power supply is adequate).

It is on a Wi-Fi at home. Belkin Wireless N but it and another computer are hard wired to it and both laptops are wirelss.

I can work Explorer (whenever I do get a successful boot) but cannot use Internet Explorer 7 without causing the freeze and Boot-Loop.

Please Help if you can.

Do you have the vista installation DVD?

Actually, this has happened to me, first of all... did you buy the upgrade for vista off of the digital locker on Microsoft.com, or did you buy the hard copy of the OS?

his f8 when booting, then choose "disable restart on system crash" or something like that, then record what the Blue Screen Of Death says, then maybe we can help you better.

Yes, I still have it.

Bought the Hard Copy from Circuit City.

If you are going to ask me do insert the disk, chose REPAIR. Don't waste your time I've aready done that without success.

NEW QUOTE: "Not only will I never buy another Gateway computer, I'll add never own another one to my list whether someone gives it to me or not." They just aren't worth the time it takes to baby them.

yeah... it's hard to tell what's wrong with it without the error messages... what does the screen say?

It is weird that it will let you boot from disc, and not repair it... so it's more than likely not with the software, probably a hardware related issue

My thoughts exactly, The Blue Screen of Death only flickers a fraction of a second then back to initiating the boot, It doesn't stay long enough for me to do more than glimpse at it. Now I can start it in safe mode with internet with all the bells and whistles turned off. If I knew where to look for an error file I'd copy and paste here for you, but when I do manage to get a successful boot Vista shows an alert about a system shut down error and asks me to find a solution on the web. I say "Find Solution" and after about an hour I get a warning that it could not find a solution. I checked the details of the system shutdown error message and there IS a list of codes there. Obviously Microsoft has never run into this problem before.