PC just keeps restarting, how do i troubleshoot

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

Well,

Hope this is the right forum but my PC keeps restarting by itself lately, I'd be just browsing the web and it would reboot after a slight pause. Sometimes Firefox and other programs might crash before this. I recently installed an extra hard drive and had a bit of trouble connecting all the SATA wires and they're pretty tangled, so maybe that's it BUT

after I installed I accidently left one panel open and this office can be pretty dusty and the problems only started a week or 2 after i installed. One day the PC just wouldn't turn on at all, I got the hoover and sucked up everything and it started. But the problem seems to be back.

How do I troubleshoot this? If I had to guess, I'd say it's dust, so what do I replace? PSU? Fan?

Thanks for any help

MickeyD

Ouch, could be lots of things.

Download something like speedfan or realtemp to monitor your temperatures, if you see them high either idle or under load you need to check your cooling. There could be some dust buildup on the heatsink of the CPU which can drastically impair cooling performance, or perhaps the cpu fan is on the way out (you can check out the RPMs in speedfan or in the BIOS, or have a look at it with the case open - if its particularly slow then its a problem), or the heatsink might not be fitted right. You could also have a look in the BIOS for temperature reports right after a crash as speedfan can be inaccurate sometimes.

To test memory, get memtest86+, put it onto a usb/cd-r and boot from it. Let it run for a few passes, if you get any errors then one of your ram sticks is faulty and you should replace it.

Your PSU could be on the way out either. How old is it? It can be tricky enough to test if the PSU is the problem if the computer sometimes powers on. Try get another PSU to test it with. If your BIOS supports it you should be able to see the voltages for each 'rail', 3.3v 5v 12v, the actual values should be within 5% of these. If you really want to test this accurately you need to get a multimeter.

It could also be your graphics card, try a different one if you can get a lend of one / have one lying around, or switch to onboard. Or you can get GPU-Z to monitor your temps to make sure they are normal for your card, but could still be faulty - do you notice any corruption of the screen (colours changing randomly etc.)?

Other than that I would plug out any extra hard drives/cd/dvd drives and just run with the one disk with your OS on it. Its possibly an error with a disk causing the reboot but I've never encountered this personally. Also just check all the cables and make sure they're all snug.

zappb

MickeyD is right on the money,

I like hardware monitor by CPUID for temp monitoring as well - very simple and user friendly (speedfan can sometimes confuse people)

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html


but don't discount a software issue either - can you run anti virus etc.. and make sure you don't have tons of malware, also do a windows update etc...

TouchingVirus

Find out the reason for the auto-restarting. Many versions of Windows now have auto-restart after a Blue Screen of Death. Check the Event Viewer the next time it restarts for notices about why. Or you could disable automatic restarts on Blue Screens and write down the error codes/message when it happens - Google how to do this for your chosen OS

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

an update to this, now the motherboard (Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3)is in a constant boot cycle. it starts up, fans whirr, then powers off and tries to start again. after googling this seems to a common proiblem, the motherboard has a corrupted BIOS and trying to boot from a backup but thats failing as well. I contacted Gigabyte and they said contact the seller, so I emailed hardwareversand.de and waiting for a reply. I rang them but it's all in German lol. I bought it 2.5 years ago so I'm not sure if they'll take it back.

So I'm sick of this ****, just want to buy a new mobo.... and I need help!
I tried looking for a lga775 like the old motherboard but I can't find none. I'm kinda in over my head. Here's the PC specs, can anyone recommend a mobo that'll work on komplett or some other site:

No.: HV20D896DE 4GB-Kit DDR2 Corsair Twin2X DHX CL5, PC6400/800  	 
No.: HV30ACF7DE Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Sockel 775 	 
No.: HVR550CSDE Corsair VX550W 550 Watt 	 
No.: HV1126ICDE Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 ,Intel P35, ATX, PCI-Express 	 
No.: HV20QT66DE Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Tray, 8192Kb, LGA775, 64bit, Kentsfield 	 
No.: HV202LS5DE Logitech Cordl. Desktop S510 	 
No.: HV203NZBDE NZXT HU001B, ATX, ohne Netzteil, schwarz 	 
No.: HVZPCDE Rechner - Zusammenbau 	 
No.: HV1351S2DE Samsung HD501LJ 500GB 7200,16 MB Cache 	 
No.: HV1351S2DE Samsung HD501LJ 500GB 7200,16 MB Cache 	 
No.: HV207S3SDE Samsung SH-203N schwarz bare SATA 	 
No.: HV1021SWDE Sapphire Radeon HD 2600Pro 512MB GDDR2, PCI-Express 	 
No.: HV25HX20DE Wavemaster HPX 2000M

Chuck Finlay

Wow, this board sure causes some problems around the web with a reboot cycle, google says.
Before you go buy a new board: It seems some RAID settings can cause problems on this particular board, I suppose your two 500GB are running as RAID...try taking them out, do a CMOS reset (battery out). Apart from that, things don't look so well after reading up on the net about this board. And I fear a 2.5y age won't get you anything from hardwareversand.

ricman

Disconnect all drives,knock off pc,remove plug from esb socket first.TRY f8 safe mode first,does it still reboot,it could be a problem or virus in the windows install/files .

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

Forgot to say, tried everything. @ricman, it doesn't even get as far as a bios screen let alone windows. i tried everything, it now has just a power supply, cpu and cpu fan and doesn't even emit beeps for no RAM. hardwareversand.de just emailed back telling me to send it back so happy out.