Might be your system crashes during shutdown, triggering the automatic restart.
Go to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery and uncheck the 'automatically restart' checkbox. Now you should be able to see the error message (if any) causing the restart.

Done that my man, Even did a clean install. I'm somewhere past windows possible errors........

Bad thing. That means hardware trouble. Did you rip the machine apart already, piece by piece? Running video, 1 memory module + your RAID (tried with 1 PATA /RAID off already?) only?

Hecks yeah, last night I ran it with another PSU one stick of mem, Raid 0 and my video card. Still same problem. I'm afraid to think what it may be........

I'm currently searching Google for that and unfortunately it looks like a zillion reasons for that are possible. PSU would have been my next guess...done. Looks like quite some people got that in conjunction with RAID controllers, too. So I would try now a single PATA disk to rule that out.

DUDE, I haven't heard that one! I'm gonna try that tonight (still at work) I'll make sure to post my findings this evening!! Thanks.......

You're welcome and good luck! (I'll try to find out more meanwhile)

Here are some more findings on Google. I'm quite impressed how many different issues can apparently lead to this kind of trouble, and I guess I'm not through all of them:

- Disable Wake-On-LAN in BIOS
- Look for a possible short circuit - this includes a defective power switch in the case
- Wireless mouse/keyboard (user changed it and reboot stopped)
- Defective soundcard / other PCI card (I guess you tried without it already)

This one sounds interesting:
http://winhlp.com/WxSP2.htm#Boot_or_...2_installation
The article concerns describes a missing microcode update with i.e. Intel Prescott CPUs and your mobo is on the list of affected boards. You've got a Northwood but check anyway if your BIOS version is 1017 or newer.

So there are some things to check before you take the hassle of doing a clean install on a IDE drive (or at least copying OS from the other).

:p :p
Sup people!!!! Good News..........

Well I've fixed the problem, yet the specifics as to the solution are still yet unclear.....Yet I've had solid success after 100 restarts on my computer (my testing). No self restart!!!

OK this is what I did:
First hats off to Xpenetrator for his insight and assistance with the RAID driver suggestion!!!

For all those that may think its a PSU eliminate that by swapping it out or checking with the brand name and see what features it has. I learned that my Enermax EG565P-VE FMA 535-watt has a circuit protection redundancy feature that latches the unit into a "shutdown" state if over current condition exist. Therefore it will not power up at all (or at least for a millisecond) if a short is detected.

I once again striped my system down and Dumped the RAID 0 configuration, slapped on a Brand new Samsung SpinPoint T133 HD400LJ 400 GB SATA II Hardrive, Dumped the BIOS (completely removing the battery and shorting the jumper), Then installed a fresh copy of Windows XP SP2.

I did the hardware switchover Wednesday, and Friday I did the windows install. Ive been pounding it all weekend with shutdown and startup commands. NO MORE AUTO RESTART!!!!!

Well, I will say this I believe it was bad RAID drivers in conflict with my BIOS.:eek:

Go Figure!?!