PC keeps rebooting (not BSOD) - nothing in event logs

RichDuffy · 31 May 2006 at 07:46

Can anyone help me here? I've got a weird crashing problem and having a little trouble locating the cause.

About 6 months ago I had random blue screens (auto-rebooted so I unticked the relevant box) and tracked it down to a bad memory module - got it replaced and all was fine for a while.

Now, I'm getting spontaneous reboots again. So far it's happened about 5 times, always while playing games (suggests it may be the graphics card) and always NEW games. The Heroes V demo and Dreamfall have both suffered, although Oblivion hasn't (yet). Running older games in DOSBox has had no ill effects.

What happens is, all of a sudden, the screen freezes and the sound stutters, then I find myself back at the POST screen. When I get back into Windows XP I find that my graphics card temperature is at about 102C - which is presumably fine for a fanless 6600GT? On checking Event Viewer, there's nothing recorded of any relevance - nothing about services shutting down (since the restart was not graceful) or causes of instability.

I suppose my next step is to clock my CPU back to its default speed, but I was wondering if anyone had any other troubleshooting suggestions (ones which don't involve removing components for the time being).

Keylow · 31 May 2006 at 09:06

Had this a few weeks ago, minus the rebooting. The system halting like that was because my hraphics card was at a similar temperature to yours. Sprayed some compressed air in the graphics card fan and all was fine again. Although as yours is fanless, im not sure what to suggest :confused:

RichDuffy · 31 May 2006 at 09:22

Keylow said:
Although as yours is fanless, im not sure what to suggest

I'm guessing, replacement!

I'm just itching for an excuse to invest in a 7900. Thing is, I'm not sure whether a GT or GTX would be more suitable for me in my current rig (and never playing at over 1280x960 resolution).

Thanks for the info - but I'll still wait a while and see if anyone else has other suggestions first...

kmistry · 31 May 2006 at 09:28

then maybe a x1800xt for you will more than suffice

EDIT: its a steal this week at only £170 inc VAT

although, im not too sure about GPU temp on a GFX card, i would say, if you are looking for an excuse to upgrade then do it!

RichDuffy · 31 May 2006 at 09:59

kmistry said:
although, im not too sure about GPU temp on a GFX card, i would say, if you are looking for an excuse to upgrade then do it!

lol... I'd love to, but am buying a house, and having to spend loads of money on furniture etc. I'm not sure I can justify a graphics card unless absolutely necessary.

The core slowdown threshold on my 6600GT is 145C, so I thought about 105 would be fine. But I guess not. I reckon I'll go for a 7900GTX, for the better cooling solution and future proofing. Is the OcUK one highly recommended, or should I go branded?

kmistry · 31 May 2006 at 10:05

Aha, with the house being a priority i reckon if you only want a GFX card to play some games, and dont want to test it too badly, then a x1800xt will be the perfect choice for you.

However, in terms of the 7900 GT im not too sure, you could try a post in the graphics card section and the experts in there will probably be able to help you better

RichDuffy · 31 May 2006 at 10:38

Yeah, I might well do that (or at least have a good search first).

Do we all agree then, that this problem is most likely due to the graphics card? Or is there anything else I should check first?

kmistry · 31 May 2006 at 10:53

u mentioned before about moving your cpu back down to stock....but its not clocked high, so i dont think that this could make a difference, have u tried checking the CPU temp?

RichDuffy · 31 May 2006 at 12:42

kmistry said:
u mentioned before about moving your cpu back down to stock....but its not clocked high, so i dont think that this could make a difference, have u tried checking the CPU temp?

Yeah, the highest I've ever seen it is 56C, usually about 51C under load... surely there would be far more symptoms if the CPU was having problems at those temps.

mojojoejo · 31 May 2006 at 12:49

Why not look at getting an Arctic cooler for the GFX? Better cooling will undoubtedly help - I know I wouldn't be happy with a card that toasty (they are hardy, but that's just me).

Clean it out - make sure the Ram chips have got good contact with the heatsink, could be a dust issue..