PC Rebooting Problem

qBot

Hi,

I'm having a weird problem with my computer, for the last month whenever i turn it on after it has been off for the night. It will reboot itself after 10 mins. However once that reboot has happened it will stay up for days on end. I can even turn it off and turn it back on straight away without problems. It seems to be related to heat somehow i think. Anyone know whats wrong.

I'm heading home for the weekend now so I won't be able to check any recomendations till sunday.

System:

AMD 2000+
Crucial 256mb
Gigabyte 7dxr+
maxtor 40gb
Windows XP pro

Col_Loki

Ok this problem could be a few things................

Download a motherboard monitor (like MBM5) to monitor your temps and voltages. See what they are like as standard (idle), also get a program called prime95....... run prime95 torture test and see wheather the voltages are dropping (causes restarts if its too low) , also you can monitor temps of the PC.

Give more specs also, like PSU and cooling (CPU / And Case Fans).

qBot

Ok.. sorry for not keeping this tread going but i've had college exams in between..

Here is whats happening now.. Once windows boots everything is fine. There is no rebooting problem. However when the pc starts from a cold boot (maybe a period of an hour of being turned off) windows can't boot up properly. On it's first attempt the computer will reach the horizontal | bar along the bottom. It will keep rebooting a few times and then maybe reach the nice windows xp colourful horizontal bar. This will reboot and reboot until it starts to get past this stage and reboot when it reaches full resolution. In which case it will take one or two reboots before actually successfully booting windows. This is a very weird problem. I think it must definitely have something to do with heat somewhere in the computer. The fact that the reboots happen when there is a change in resolution (ie. windows nt/xp/2000 boot bar -> windows xp boot bar -> windows resolution change) suggests my graphics card must be involved also.?


I am running prime95 for the past 5 hours and it's reporting no errors, it's passed all of the tests so far. I have mdm5 running in the background and my cpu is running at 62c and system at 38c. The cpu has always run at this temperature when busy since i made the computer 3 years ago.


As for the specs..
My psu came with my aopen case. it's a 300 watt psu.
The cooling is a standard amd heatsink/fan
my graphics card has a heatsink without any fan. Its a geforce 4mx 440 with agp 8x (I have agp set to 2x)

One more thing. Before installing both monitoring tools today i spent two hours disassembling my computer completely. Hoovering out the dust, re setting the cpu with thermal paste and everything else that goes with it. But alas i still have the same problem.:)

qBot

well.. prime95 has been running for almost 20 hours now and all tests have been passed. The cpu is running at 62c and sensor 2 at 38c. The system is perfectly stable.

Anyone have any ideas?

Col_Loki

Try a few loops of 3dmark to check graphics card stability. Im not sure what voltage 2x AGP works at, might be different than 4/8x ........... possibility ?

Other than that it looks alot like your PSU.

Explosive_Cornflake

I *think*
8x is 0.8v
4x is 1.5v
and 2x is 3.3.v.
I say think because what my abit book tells me is
"this motherboard does not suppost 3.3v AGP cards. Use only 1.5b and 0.8v AGP cards"
From what i remember it only runs 4x and 8x cards.

qBot

Alright.. i've changed my agp speed back to 4x. Ill see how this goes in the morning. If it is my psu is there anyway to make sure before i fork out money for a new one. I don't want to spend too much as ill be selling this machine in a few weeks/months anyway.

Slightly off topic: does anyone of u know how to figure out what speed my ide drives are running at. You know are they ata 33 / ata 133 etc. I think my ide cables might be slowing my hard drive down.

qBot

ok.. as soon as i changed the agp speed to 4x (which is the maximum of my motherboard) my pc froze in a matter of minutes. I have now changed it back again. I'm going to run 3dmark for a while and see what results that gives me.

Explosive_Cornflake

Originally posted by qBot
Slightly off topic: does anyone of u know how to figure out what speed my ide drives are running at. You know are they ata 33 / ata 133 etc. I think my ide cables might be slowing my hard drive down.

Maybe This may exaplin. To see what mode your in [start] + pause/hardware/device manager/ IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers/(what ever)/Advanced settings. That will tell you what mode your in. That page should tell you the speed.
Hopefully thats right

Edit: Confusing with me and qbot having the same avatar. Reader beware.

qBot

Originally posted by Explosive_Cornflake
Maybe This may exaplin. To see what mode your in [start] + pause/hardware/device manager/ IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers/(what ever)/Advanced settings. That will tell you what mode your in. That page should tell you the speed.
Hopefully thats right

Edit: Confusing with me and qbot having the same avatar. Reader beware.

Thanks. as i figured it's running at 33mhz.. ill have to get new cables.

pyrogenx

weired problem, i had it before along with my system resetting every few minutes. The problem was the mainboard !
its only a hint ......

qBot

Originally posted by pyrogenx
weired problem, i had it before along with my system resetting every few minutes. The problem was the mainboard !
its only a hint ......

cheers lad.. but the more i think about it and the more i use my computer the more i think it is the psu. For instance the last day when i opened too many instances of media player classic, the computer couldn't cope and rebooted. I think it was because it was simply drawing too much power that the psu couldn't provide.

Anyone know of some cheap good SILENT psu's?

Col_Loki

Good cheap Silent PSU......... www.hitide.ie and have a look at the be-quiets.

Other than that you could get a fortron and mod the fan to run @5v (very quiet) but this involves voiding the warrenty , and doing a bit of re-wireing....... great results and pretty cheap. www.pc-look.com (i got a Zalman 5v adapter and brought the PSU cables into the case so i could adjust it easily).

pyrogenx

I don't think it makes much of a difference of how many windows, games or videos are playing at the same time as in relation to the amount of power the whole PC uses up. It might be the likes of 5 - 50 watts between standby and hardcore gaming.

But if its a restarting problem it might well be the PSU alright. Try a different power supply and then put the pc under full load, see does it do it.

hcvti

Have you tried the memory?, Try changing one of the sticks of memory,(Unless it's RIMM which has to be paired), have seen simmular before and it was a stick of memory, eventually it just wouldnt power up. you could also try the cpu, if you could first get a spare one for it, But the first thing I would do is a reload, format and restart, I built a pc recently for my friends wife and it had a heatsing which was too small for the CPU, it would continnually crash when opening a word document, nero, etc, changed the fan and sink and reloaded and its working a treat since, I think it was actually a software issue, It would open a file from inside word but if you double clicked on a word file word would open and eventually freeze.

1). format and reload (Cheapest)
2). 1 stick of memory at a time,
3). CPU and heatsink

Later.

Col_Loki

The fact that it Ran prime95 for 20hours means........

Its NOT the CPU or the RAM or the CPU Cooling and most lightly the PSU is ok aswell.

Prime95 will put the CPU & Ram under alot of pressure and inturn this will test cooling and PSU. Have a look at mabye a re-install or the GFX card/Motherboard ...............

See if you can get a lend of a PSU, ohh and what make is it BTW (and model number like FSP*** mabye)?

qBot

friend of mine is bringing in his psu tomorrow so hopefully i will know then what the problem is.

Col_Loki

My bet is on the GFX/Motherboard (mabye hardware or driver issues).

Let us know how you get on anyway.

qBot

will do..

i'm hoping it's the gfx card... i have a spare one at home which i keep on forgetting to bring up.. otherwise i'm going to have to fork out money that i don't have..


Thanks for your help guys.

Brian.

qBot

Well finally got around to buying power supply... and turns out it did the trick.. Twas a 300watt jeantec psu i bought from pc world for €30.... any know anything bout these?

Col_Loki

There ok, not great TBH but should be ok to power your system i think. Try running prime95 for an hour and if you dont get reboots then your most lightly ok........ good to hear you got it sorted BTW.

qBot

grrrr... didn't get it sortet yet unfortunately.. I installed windows again and now i'm getting blue screens on startup... something about ntdll or ntkernel.dll.. And if i remember right thats got to do with a lack of power.. i think ill return it and get something off kompett.. Any suggestions?


I Hate Computers

qBot

well... got all problems ironed out yesterday.. turned out that it was only a messed up installation... Don't get me wrong though.. the main problem was the psu.. but i reinstalled everything once i bought a new one something went amiss..

Problem solved..

btw.. im thinking about buying some silent fans and maybe another psu (silent) for the computer... can anyone point me in the right direction.