McClef, I had a similar problem with the computer itself several months back, We had a thunderstorm, and when I got home, my computer was locked up on one of the reboot sequence screens. I could tell there had been a power failure because of the blinking clocks on the oven, coffee maker, and microwave. I pushed the reboot button and nothing happened, so I shut the machine down, waited 2 minutes and powered it up again. It posted and started booting. then it rebooted on its own. It did this several times, so, on the advice of my daughter, I turned it off and unplugged the power cord. I left it unplugged for 30 minutes, plugged it back in and powered it up. It booted and worked normally after that. In the Navy, as an Electronics tech, we had a term for problems like this, WE said that "the Gremlins had gotten into the equipment" Computers seem to get major Gremlin infestations some times.. So I want to add one more computer acronym:

MGI = Major Gremlin Infestation