computer restarting for no reason well maby..

elexes

right its a abit nf-7s , amd xp 2500 , ati 9700 , sb live -

right every now and again it will just decide without warning to restart itself . im kinda baffled . the only thing i use this computer for is gaming so i thought it may be a graphics problom with open gl and the games ( considering ive heard of those probloms b4 ) but then it done it when i was browsing a webpage so i thought of overheating chked the temps and they were in the low 50's i personaly think its the sound card but one thing i did notise every time it happened my mobile phone was getting a sms or a phone call or i was on it .

any help would be nice its got me baffled
also dling the latest win 2k drivers for the sb live now and the ati 9700 .

one last question dose anyone know a good svcd player

Saruman

Go into system properties, startup and untick "auto reboot".. restart it and then see what happens... you might get a blue screen that will tell you whats in mem when it crashes. When auto reboot is ticked (be default in 2k/XP) you dont see it. It might show you a driver file thats causing it so you know what to fix.

RapierX

Check that voltages are alright, something like PC Alert should do the trick, could even be a dodgy plug socket.

change to 'always-on' in power control panel, hmm strange one that...

padraigmyers

The usual reason that a wndows machine restarts itself is because of an error on the
IDE Bus, I've seen this a few times, even onmy own machine. It could be a dodgy
IDE cable, a sick hard drive or CD-ROM. Take note of some of the things that seam
to begoing on whenit reboots, like is the CD-ROM or DVD being accessed, if you
have more than one hard drive is it always the same hard drive being accessed? It
might be an idea to try maving around the CD-ROM/DVD and see if you can track
down the problem that way.

Gerry

How about the time-honoured trick of taking everything non essential out of the machine, and see how that goes? I'm fairly sure you've heard that one before.
Svcd player - power dvd is pretty good.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

this happens to me a fair bit on my desktop. I am ususally playing an mp3, or watching a divx. but not always..

i thought overheating but it's usually steady around 55 degrees.

I had thought it might be one of the hd's cos of the playing mp3s, and there *always* being a scandisk and some error afterwards.

Typedef

Originally posted by Gerry
How about the time-honoured trick of taking everything non essential out of the machine, and see how that goes? I'm fairly sure you've heard that one before.
Svcd player - power dvd is pretty good.

Yeah do that.

Good starting point.
Try checking BIOS revisions for your motherboard to see if this is a known and fixed issue.
Same thing with your AGP's firmware.

Could be that you have your power supply overloaded.
Could be a driver.
Could be a virus.

Could be an act of great cake.
It's kind of difficult to say.

Silent Bob

<beardy>Here's a nickel kid, go buy yourself a real OS</beardy>

Eurorunner

usually points to power supply problem..

Capt'n Midnight

Next - has anything changed recently - try to undo the changes (remove new HW / restore prev settings / uninstall SP4 or whatever)

Get a decent HW soak test utility - leave it on - (bootable - ie fdd or bootable CD - DO NOT USE THE OS ...)

Turn off power management in the BIOS - lets face it SW can cause your PC to reboot by incorrect BIOS calls.. - turn off all screen savers and windows power management too.

If you have 128MB of ram then there over one billion memory cells that all have to work - sometimes static damaged RAM will "heal" itself if not used for a while then die.

Is the crashing time dependent - ie.. will you always get half an hour before it crashes - in which case more cooling (or try underclocking to see if more stable.)

( as an aside when they used to make ram they would make up a few extra rows and columns , test them and then wire up the ones that worked )

Adrian

you could have a virus cause that happened to me a while back. Get a good virus checker and scan your computer. A driver may be damaged. Anti virus or norman will fix iyt hopefully.

Paddyo

I had a problem like this recently

Turned out to be the capacitors on the MOBO - got them replaced and now all is working fine.

Look at them and if the silver pieces are raised slightly then it indicates that they need replacing.

Good Luck

M03

For me it was a bad memory module. Do a google for prime95. Download and run the stress test. Leave it running for about 4-5 hours (Go watch a movie or 2 ) You can check back every hour or so. If you get a hardware error then either:
your bios ram timings are too aggressive;
the machine is overclocked too far;
one of your mem sticks is f**ked;
your cpu needs a bit more juice (raise voltage a smidge);
your cpu is f**ked;

For me it was a bad mem stick as I was not o/cing at all.

It would happen during games mostly but also happened while browsing. Eventually it corrupted the registry in memory and I had to do some good old DOS manipulation to get my machine to boot.

Good luck.

M03

napalm@night

this may sound stupid but did you make sure that your power cable is in firmly and that its not loose thus every so often causing it to restart cause the power was cut for a sec if you say rubbed of the cable or something....just a thought...

Capt'n Midnight

wireless keyboard + CrashOnScrollLock registry setting ?

Silent Bob

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
If you have 128MB of ram then there over one billion memory cells that all have to work - sometimes static damaged RAM will "heal" itself if not used for a while then die.

No new systems use static RAM for main memory these days, 'tis way too slow.

As to the original problem: If you suspect the sound board, take it out and run the comp for a week or so, see if it still happens

The reason it happens while you're on the mobile might be because you spend far too much time on the mobile

deepspeed

I have an ABIT NF7-M , and the damn thing *KEPT* resetting like u were saying... All I was doing was clicking different stuff then *bang*.

I flashed the BIOS with the latest version (ver 20) and everything appears to be running smoothly now (only have it 2 days so...) fingers crossed, touch wood etc.

I'd try that if I were you... Plus download the latest drivers from the abit.com.tw website (they're on the same page..)

Best of luck..

deepspeed

GODDAMMIT, I take that back, the FuCKiNg thing is gone all pear shaped on me again..

It happens to me now, just as I go to load applications / apply settings etc, so I'm betting on:

1) Shaggered HDD
2) Shaggered RAM

I'm kinda hoping its number 2) cos it'll be a pain to return the disk.

Anyways, try replacing your ram and HDD (as someone else mentioned too...) and let us know how you get on,

Good stuff.

Dar

Do you have any usb stuff plugged in? Had the same problem last week, spent 2 days trying to find out what was wrong. Eventually I realised the only thing I hadnt tried was taking off the usb mouse, and hey presto perfectly stable.

sci0x

There are a lot of possible causes for sudden reboots. If they happen only when you run a particular application that program is probably the culprit. Check the software manufacturer's Website for an update or look for a more stable program. Try finding the mischievous program by turning off all the applications that load automatically when Windows boots: Press <Windows>-R, type 'msconfig', and press <Enter>. Click the Startup tab, uncheck everything, click OK, and reboot your system. If that solves the problem, try rechecking programs on the Startup tab one at a time (reboot between each) until the problem recurs. When it does, you've found the souurce.

Capt'n Midnight

static RAM is not the same as static damaged RAM

One is still used for Cache (so ~90% of the time your programs are running in static memory!)

The second could also be written as
RAM - damaged by static electricity
(which is bloody annoying 'cos fabricating zener diodes etc. can be done on the same silicon as is used for the memory and provides good protection to the chip.. - unless there is enough static to cause crackling noise - this will have enough energy to kill most gates on most integrated circuits...)


Mobile phones pump out more power when the reception is bad - look at thier effect on old monitors ! - part of the reason why you have to run computers with the case on is to keep EMI to a minimum (In and Out )

hint: disable external/internal cache too - had a system that kept keeling over after flash upgrade till I disabled the cache - flashed down and can use the cache again...