Random Reboots driving me insane!

n1kunj · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:17

For quite a while now my pc has been randomly rebooting, but before it was quite uncommon. Now it happens after about 5-15 minutes of starting up a game, and occasionally happens while I'm on the desktop.

Basically, I'm playing normally when the screen goes blank, I hear a beep from the computer and it just reboots like I pressed the reboot button. When the computer gets back to desktop a message saying "The system has recovered from a serious error," and the event viewer says the error has an event code of 1003.

I have no idea what the cause of it could be and cannot test hardware because of this beign the only computer. I've tried formatting but the problem remains, so I think I've ruled out Windows being the cause and have also tried new graphics drivers but the problem remains.

The system specs are:

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ at stock
Asus A7V8X-X VIA
Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro Atlantis
512MB Crucial PC2700 RAM
C-Media sound card
Maxtor MaxLine II 250GB HDD
Generic 500W PSU that came with case

Anybody here had a similar experience and have any ideas about what I can do? :confused:

void · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:52

Are you running any anti virus/ anti spyware software?

n1kunj · 17 Mar 2006 at 21:55

AVG anti-virus and Sygate Personal Firewall. Neither have given me any trouble before and I've had them way before the reboots began.

Energize · 17 Mar 2006 at 22:46

Disable "automatically restart on system failure", that way you can eliminate the psu.

kchakkar · 17 Mar 2006 at 23:08

It could be your memory. I had the same problem with mine, where it re-boots when in desktop or transfering a file. I ran memtest86 and it found one of my memory modules was faulty so I RMA it to Mushkin.

leezer3 · 17 Mar 2006 at 23:46

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=894278&sd=RMVP
MS thinks this is spyware, fits your case almost perfectly.

As stated above give Memtest a go and see what this finds. Also give Prime a try.

Finally, is it only in games that this problem occurs?- If so, it could be pointing to a temp problem when the system is stressed- What are your temps?

-Leezer-

Talbs13 · 17 Mar 2006 at 23:48

I used to have the exact same spec, same cpu,mobo,mem and the memory was faulty. Replace the memory and you will be fine.

n1kunj · 18 Mar 2006 at 00:12

It isn't only games when this occurs, but it is mainly. Sometimes the computer will just reboot while on the desktop when idle, so I don't think it would be the temperatures. I'll run prime and see if the same thing happens though.

Memtest came back with no errors, and currently running a Spybot S&D search to see if it could be spyware.

Edit: Spybot came back with 29 errors but all of them cookies, so I doubt they would be the cause of the problem.

n1kunj · 18 Mar 2006 at 01:08

Retried BF2 and managed to last about 30 mins before the crash. I turned off the "automatically restart on system failure" thing and instead of rebooting it went to a blue screen with no writing whatsoever on it. I assume then that I can rule out the PSU because the power didn't cut out.

That leaves:

The Graphics Card
The Sound Card
The Processor
The MoBo
And possibly the RAM, but memtest came up with no errors.

The computer idles at about 43C and after my prime burn will see the max temps.

Edit: left prime over night and woke up to max temps of about 50C. The computer did'nt crash so that means I can rule out temps being the problem (I think)