xp pro...im backing up everything right now...should be rebooted in a couple hours

test what leads?

and when i had the case off, i noticed that the hard drive fan on my 120 wasnt hooked up, but that wouldnt cause the reboot?

would any type of overheating cause this?

i cant find the voltage in the bios but there is a thing called "system thermal" it was on ignore and it can be changed to monitor"

the cpu critial temp is at 149*F and can be set as high as 167*F

yes overheating would cause your system to reboot an this is a guide on how to test your psu

I'd put my money on bad power supply. The fact that you can eventually boot up would make me think your other hardware is fine. But get them fans hooked up.

oh yeah an sense you have an NT based system you can always look in event viewer an see what it has to say for why it reboots, you can also use something like EVEREST(used to be aida32) to tell you system information like temp an voltages also if you want/can