Sigh - Computer keeps restarting

xKratosx

xKratosx

xKratosx

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Joined
6 Jun 2005
Posts
188
I effin' hate computers, I really do. :)

Not sure if you read the hardware forum but if so you'd probably notice I've had a bit of an on going saga with my computer, it was making some funny noises, after a while I diagnosed it as definitely being the graphics card so I swapped it for an x1650 and then even more problems began.

First of all I noticed how poorly it performed, so I ran ATI Tool and clocked the speed so it runs now about the same as my old 6800 and whilst I was at it, decided I'd try clocking the CPU too (from 2500+ to 3200+) and again all seemed well.

But then my computer started to restart a lot, great! It just cuts out without any warning and goes straight to the POST screen, this is incredibly annoying since for the past two/three years or so of having this computer it's barely crashed at all, I'd say it's crashed far more in the past few days than it has in the past few years, and I'm a bit dejected by the whole thing now :(

I've reset the clock speeds etc back to standard, my processor is going along at 2500+ again, the graphics GPU and memory are going at their defaults, and I've changed the fan speeds too so it'll keep both the CPU and graphics cooler than usual, but I'm still experiencing the problems ;_;

I've checked event viewer and there's nothing in there that looks really out of place, a few Windows Defender warnings, a couple of DCOM errors and a couple of Service Control errors too ("The Messenger Sharing Folders USN Journal Reader service service terminated unexpectedly" for example).

Again, I'm really not sure what to do now. I want to get a new PC at some point but since this thing does everything I want it to (when it works) I'm not really keen on the idea of getting a new PC just yet since in six months I'll be able to get something a lot better for similar money. Any help or advice would be great, thanks.
 
Sorry, here are my computer's specs:
Antec Sonata Truepower 380W PSU
Asus a7n8x-e deluxe
AMD Barton 2500+
Sapphire Radeon x1650 Pro
2x512MB Crucial DDR400
2xATA hard drives
1xSATA hard drive
2xDVD-RWs
 
try increasing the voltage to the cpu a little. in the bios the option will be something like "vcore voltage". i think the default for an xp2500 is 1.65v. try the smallest notch up you can. :)
 
Hi, graphics is running at 57 degrees, CPU is running at 58 degrees.

Fairly hot I know, but the CPU has been running like this since forever and I've never had a single problem or crash :(
 
Check inside your case to see if any of the fans is not clogged up with dust. Maybe your PC is overheating causing random restarts?
 
Is there any one thing or event that you are doing when the resets take place? Or are they really and truly entirely randomnly, as far as you can tell?

Just a wild thought, but how many sticks of RAM have you got? If more than one, try leaving just one in and see how the PC is with that stick of RAM. Then try it with the other sticks of RAM, one at a time to see if any of them cause a problem.

If you are able to download a Linux Live CD and see how that works. If the PC still resets then its definitely a hardware issue but if the PC seems fine then it hints at a Windows error somewhere. Its probably a hardware issue but it doesn't hurt to eliminate things just to be sure.
 
Cheers for the reply, I've ran a memory tester and it came back with no errors unfortunately, so it's not that.

It does seem completely random and has only happened once whilst I've been at the PC. A lot of the time when I leave just MSN and uTorrent open I'll come back after a few hours and the computer will of restarted, although Wolfenstein has crashed a few times where it didn't before, and I've noticed Firefox is crashing even more than usual.

When I set the computer to run chkdsk /r on bootup it bought up a blue screen of death near the end and just wouldn't progress past it, I couldn't really get into safe mode either, it kept crashing on the loading driver page, so I hit F8 and restored the last good configuration. It seems to be working for now, if I can't think of anything else to do and it keeps restarting then I'm gonna have to try and find my Windows XP CD and re-install I guess which is a bit of a pain. Going to start backing up my files now anyway just in case!
 
xKratosx said:
Cheers for the reply, I've ran a memory tester and it came back with no errors unfortunately, so it's not that.
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No probs mate. I'll always help if I can.

xKratosx said:
It does seem completely random and has only happened once whilst I've been at the PC. A lot of the time when I leave just MSN and uTorrent open I'll come back after a few hours and the computer will of restarted, although Wolfenstein has crashed a few times where it didn't before, and I've noticed Firefox is crashing even more than usual.

When I set the computer to run chkdsk /r on bootup it bought up a blue screen of death near the end and just wouldn't progress past it, I couldn't really get into safe mode either, it kept crashing on the loading driver page, so I hit F8 and restored the last good configuration. It seems to be working for now, if I can't think of anything else to do and it keeps restarting then I'm gonna have to try and find my Windows XP CD and re-install I guess which is a bit of a pain. Going to start backing up my files now anyway just in case!
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Hmm does sound quite random then, if there is no single event that happens each time. There's no hardware loose is there? Like the graphics card not fully plugged in or a cable just a little out anywhere is there?

Before you go formatting, give something like System Rescue CD or Ultimate Boot CD a go. They can do a chkdsk and stuff for you but in a kind of Linux OS so they should be less demanding on your PC than doing this in Windows would be.

If you still can't get a chkdsk or whatever else in then it might suggest a hardware problem so hopefully, if you try out one of them, you'll find that everything works OK with them and that the problem is indeed Windows.
 
Great advice, thanks, I'll give it a try!

Which of the two programs would you really recommend? I assume both do a great job, so ideally the one that's fairly easy to use and I can just run it without too much intervention or chance of seriously damaging something? :)
 
Er I think Ultimate Boot CD is more highly regarded but I've not used either for a while so not sure. Give both a try and see which you like more.
 
dmpoole said:
The first two things I would look at are -
Your CPU is overheating
Your PSU is on the way out.
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Yeah could be. The only thing is that he says the CPU is at 58oC, which granted is high, but he says its been like that forever.

Perhaps he could try taking the side of the case off and perhaps aiming a desk fan at the CPU to see if that cools it down a bit?

He's already checked the fans and re-fitted the heatsink. So perhaps the PSU? But then wouldn't that cause problems when the computer runs something demanding?
 
MarcLister said:
So perhaps the PSU? But then wouldn't that cause problems when the computer runs something demanding?
Click to expand...

The last four computers I've fixed for re-booting have all been PSU problems.
I've got a cheapo £10 unit that I try before they choose something better.
In all 4 cases they chose to keep the £10 unit :(

The last PC I had re-booting for the CPU was my own and it ended up the fan and heatsink were clogged with dust and grime.
 
dmpoole said:
The last four computers I've fixed for re-booting have all been PSU problems.
I've got a cheapo £10 unit that I try before they choose something better.
In all 4 cases they chose to keep the £10 unit :(

The last PC I had re-booting for the CPU was my own and it ended up the fan and heatsink were clogged with dust and grime.
Click to expand...
Ah. I suppose if a PSU is on the blink or its a cheapo one then the restarts could indeed be entirely random.

I've never really had any problems with restarting PCs and dodgy PSUs. I'm going to have to clean out my PC innards soon. The dust builds up quite quickly despite the dust filter on my intake fan. Course the dust filter is a double edged sword for me; it reduces dust getting into the case but it also means that the case and processor temps go up as the dust blocks the filter and reduces the amount of air getting into the case.

Darn dust!:(
 
Many thanks again for the replies, pretty certain it isn't a PSU issue, I've used an online calculator and should be running at quite a bit below 300w so it should be fine on that account. I've also recently gave it all a good clean so should be alright on that account too, hehe.

It's all gone horribly, horribly wrong now anyway. I did a format, every thing seemed fine, it didn't crash at all yesterday, but the internet was a little temperamental, checked device manager and the ethernet adapter had a yellow icon next to it. Tried the drivers that came with the motherboard, no luck, tried the ones on the Asus website and it wouldn't boot into Windows, safe mode worked fine, removed the drivers, tried the latest nForce drivers, worked but still had the yellow exclaimation mark. It then started asking for 'Marvell' ethrnet adapter drivers (I never even knew the chip was made by Marvell 'til yesterday) so I grabbed these from the official website, rebooted and now it won't boot into Windows, safe mode, nor boot with the last known good configuration.

Worst thing about it is that I've already moved some files from my backup drive yesterday so I'm going to have to download and use Knoppix to try and recover them, and the absolute worst thing about is that I know when I format the partition again and re-install Windows I'm going to have exactly the same problems again unless I can magically find working drivers for the card :(
 
Absolute nightmare. Just done another format and managed to lose heaps of documents that I need, but oh well, I'm not going to worry about them because there's nothing I can do about it now, so whatever ;p

The thing that is bugging me though is my ethernet drivers still aren't working, I've got an anti virus installed this time around (Nod32) so it's not a virus causing the driver issues, but I've tried installing the ones that came on the motherboard CD, I've tried the ones from the Asus website, I've tried letting Windows automatically install whichever drivers it prefers and still it has the yellow exclaimation mark.

The network seems to be working just fine though, it just seems to drop occasionally and my Bit Torrent program for example is running at less than ~2kb/s, despite when I ran it on my parent's PC using the same port it runs at ~100kb/s on the exact same torrent files. Absolute nightmare ;/ As an extra test I've just tried loading a single torrent with thousands of seeds that has gaurenteed to max out my connection in the past, and this time it's going at kb/s, not even connecting. Downstairs it's fine, using the same uTorrent version.
 
What motherboard?

*Ah Asus one.*

So you downloaded the http://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/lan/marvell/Marvell_v628.zip drivers? And they didn't work? What did you do? Did you go into the Device Manager and select the network card? Update driver and point it at the folder you extracted the drivers to?

If that nor Windows install gets the network card drivers sorted I've no idea what is going on.
 
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