Strange random restarts

ginandmilk · 17 Dec 2009 at 09:57

I put a new system together a few months ago. No problems with it for 6 or so weeks but recently it has started restarting randomly.

I haven't added or removed any hardware since the build but I have added and removed a lot of software.

Doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing just before it restarts.. sometimes I'm playing games, sometimes I'm just browsing the web and last night I was burning a DVD when it happened. Sometimes it won't happen all night, other times it happens 5+ times a night.

About half the time after the random restart my USB mouse doesn't work (but then it will if I manually restart it after that).

Sometimes when windows loads back up after one of the random restarts I get the "windows has recovered from a serious error" message which tells me it was a blue screen error though I don't see the blue screen before the restart.

I don't think its overheating, my CPU is at 40ish degrees and my graphics card (which has always seemed to run hot) is around 65.

Any idea what the problem could be? Blue screen is a software error right? So hopefully there's nothing wrong with the hardware side of things.

Help would be much appreciated.

Windows 7 home premium 64bit
X4 995
Asus M4A77TD Pro
ATI 4850
4GB 10666 RAM
OCZ 420w PSU

bJN · 17 Dec 2009 at 10:01

Check your RAM and possibily reseat it on your mobo, can cause problems like this.
It might also be worth finding out if your PSU is enough; mine started doing this for a few days before in the end it literally exploded in my case, luckily not damaging anything in there.

ginandmilk · 17 Dec 2009 at 10:12

bJN said:
It might also be worth finding out if your PSU is enough; mine started doing this for a few days before in the end it literally exploded in my case, luckily not damaging anything in there.

It is a few years old.. I pulled it out of my previous system instead of buying a new one.. hope that isn't the problem, can't afford to be shelling out on a new PSU

bJN · 17 Dec 2009 at 10:21

Hopefully it shouldn't be, it was merely speculation after a scenario I was faced with several months ago, it's unlikely to be the cause but nevertheless a possibility...
Try a memorytesting tool (MemTest) and see if there are any errors on the RAM, another possible cause.

d_brennen · 17 Dec 2009 at 10:26

Long shot but do you have 4x1GB sticks? If so up the voltage on your RAM a touch and re test.

ginandmilk · 17 Dec 2009 at 10:50

Nope, is 2x2gb sticks. Will try a memory test this afternoon.

Thanks for the input!

ginandmilk · 17 Dec 2009 at 18:31

Tried memtest, left it on for a couple hours and it came back error free... not the RAM then

Nocky24 · 17 Dec 2009 at 19:21

Problems i've seen like this usually end up being psu related. How old is the psu? Did you buy it new when you was putting together your build a few months ago?

Auraomega · 17 Dec 2009 at 20:30

ginandmilk said:
I pulled it out of my previous system instead of buying a new one..

Nocky24 said:
How old is the psu? Did you buy it new when you was putting together your build a few months ago?

Sounds like a PSU issue to me, I had the exact same thing a few years back, can the state of a PSU be checked via a DMM?

Have you tried a stress test, Prime95 for example, and seeing what happens there?