Random restarts

[ANova]

Ok so my computer acted strange about three months ago and ever since it's been randomly restarting with the occasional freeze, but not that often. It doesn't seem to be related to power draw as I have gone hours of playing games without a problem and I believe it has restarted while idle at least once or twice, though it does seem to do it most often while I'm exiting a game oddly enough.

The biggest problem was at the beginning of all this. I had indeed just exited a game when it froze, I restarted it a number of times without it booting into windows so I decided to set the clock back to standard (it's overclocked), but it was even worse freezing in the bios. I shut it off completely (switched off the power supply) and tried it again setting it back to it's overclocked state afterwards which it started up fine again. It then didn't have any problems for about a month until it started restarting this month. It hasn't been a big problem but has me perplexed, especially its out of the blue fit. Maybe a dodgy power supply?

Antec Truepower 430 watt
P4 3.0C (Northwood) @ 3.4 GHz
Asus P4P800-E Deluxe
ATI Radeon X850 XT
2 120 GB Maxtor HDs
1 200 GB Maxtor HD

Maybe three hard drives is too much with everything else.

 

[SugarCoat]

flashing BSOD right before restart or simple locking?

I'd run through this list, most likely culprit to least likely.

-run memtest86 checking for errors
-dust in the chipset/processor fan
-check heatsinks for broken retaining mechanism
-capacitor popped
-dirty power
-motherboard/processor biting it after extended overclocking
-might be that time of the year for a fresh XP install

 

[ANova]

No BSODs at all, just restarts. Windows doesn't even give an error before or afterwards. Sometimes it freezes on a black screen, again mostly after starting or exiting a game. I can move the mouse around but if I press any buttons it too then freezes with a single system beep.

I believe I've run memtest without any errors but I'll check it again. The processor and video card are both running well within designed temperatures: 38C idle, 45C load on the cpu, 42C idle, 60C load on the gpu.

I'd hate to have to reinstall windows. I have so many tweaks and programs installed it would take forever to do it all over.

 

[_xxx_]

Pretty sure it's the PSU, exactly the same kind of problems I had before I switched it. Also, check your HDD's for failures.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Dumb question, but in Control Panel under System under the Advanced tab and in the Start up and Recovery settings hit "Settings" and see if "Automatically Restart" is checked...if so uncheck it.

Sometimes it could just be an error spontenously rebooting you if you don't uncheck that.

 

[nutball]

Try reseating your DIMMs, cables, connectors and graphics card, sometimes that helps I've found.

But it does sound PSU-ish to me.

 

[Skrying]

Dumb question, but in Control Panel under System under the Advanced tab and in the Start up and Recovery settings hit "Settings" and see if "Automatically Restart" is checked...if so uncheck it.

Sometimes it could just be an error spontenously rebooting you if you don't uncheck that.

Yes, double check this.

I believe this is checked by default and people often have more problems with troubleshooting because a BSOD can offer greatly beneficial TS info.

I think it could possibly be the PSU. But I would not go replacing that right now anyway. Also, if you must format I strongly suggest you invest in some sorts of imaging software. With a decently clean install, makes things MUCH easier when a real nasty software issue comes up.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Also look inside your case to see if it's dusty. Dust accumulation can lead to crashes which can lead to auto-reboots unless you uncheck that check box thingy I mentioned.

 

[ANova]

I unchecked the automatically restart. It is fairly dusty but it gets like that every two or less weeks after I clean it, which I do on a regular basis. I will try reseating the connectors and removing the unnecessary hard drives as well.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[SugarCoat]

I dont mean to go against the grain since 8/10 people blame the power supplies before anything else, but i dont really buy that for the issues you described. If it was the PSU it wouldnt lock up only when a program was exiting nor would it become worse or make a more complicated problem if you defaulted BIOS settings. If it was a PSU issue, you'd be having stability problems all over the place. Not just in certain prime situations. Sounds like a motherboard issue. I would really look at the memory and certainly look into why it wont boot reliably in default settings.

3 7200RPM HDDs at those sizes will need a 12V capable of 2-3A/30 Watts (worse case)


Did you add any new hardware just before it started having issues? Anything at all? Last time you did a Bios update?

 

[Dresden]

If I were to guess, and I'm no pro on the subject yet, I would say this is a heat related issue. From where it's spawning from it's hard to say. Computer's tend to have an array of failsafes that would shut the PC down in the event of overheating, as is the case with my friends computer which was countered by (and I don't recommend this) him directing a fan into his open case. Immediately after building my latest rig I had similar problems at first, due to the fact that somehow one of the rivets on my heatsink attached to my processor somehow came dislodged and as a failsafe my computer would shut down before the processor went up in flames.

 

[Geo]

I unchecked the automatically restart. It is fairly dusty but it gets like that every two or less weeks after I clean it, which I do on a regular basis. I will try reseating the connectors and removing the unnecessary hard drives as well.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Let's wait to see the next time. I bet there will be a BSOD error message that might help. I'm thinking this is driver/resource related somewhere. I'm not buying power/heat with the pattern you have described. That automatic restart thing was a horrid idea for a default (horrid idea for MS to do, I mean).

Tho you might try a tour of driver rev reviewing. Make sure everything's recent. Particularly sound. Why particularly? Well, umm, cause that's the most common "random wtf?" I've had over the years.

Edit: Come to think of it, I've had HDD fighting/bad sectors do that too.

 

[ANova]

It probably is a driver conflict. I haven't reinstalled windows in at least a year and I've got a good 50 programs installed along with a ton of drivers. I had a video driver problem awhile ago after a screwed up drivercleaner situation, I thought I had fixed it but maybe not. It can't be a heat problem either, everything checks out with flying colors plus I've got an all aluminum case with good airflow.

The only thing I've change in recent months was adding that third 200 GB drive, so that will definitely be one of my first things to test. I doubt it's an outdated driver; I haven't touched my motherboard drivers since I first got the thing and it's performed flawless until this.