Computer reboots randomly and during games...500pts

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Pete Long

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Mrkaras

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tiranathon

As the others have said, sounds a lot like a tempurature issue, make sure your CPU/case fans are working properly and that nothing is blocking the fan vent on your PSU

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Callandor

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nettowa

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RyGiL

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Have you installed the VIA 4in1 (Hyperion) drivers? http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=300

-dog*

ASKER

Hello,

Thanks to everyone for all your comments, I just got home from work and am going to try to follow everyone's suggestion. I will post comments later tonight, thanks again,

OK, let us know. One other thing to check is that your motherboard isn't contacting the case somewhere, which seems unlikely since it had been working for a long time.

-dog*

ASKER

I was trying to get the computer to reboot by it self so it would go to the blue screen and give me the error codes but the video just froze. I was testing the need for speed demo, i have via 4 in one installed, and have the newest nvida drivers installed, and after playing the game for about 2 minutes the screen just goes into pixels, changes colors a few times, then gets stuck on a white screen, with just a few pixels. I ran 3dmark 2001 and it went through the entire bencmark fine, which was almost 7 minutes long. The cpu is at about 45* C, I have a fan on the cpu, one next to it, one on the case. I saw the http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=325730 site and I thougt tihs was it, but It didnt work, I found a copy of the nvidia drivers from december of 2002, installed it and it didnt work eithe, The computer so far tonight has not rebooted by itself. Could it be a combination of problems? I checked the capicators and they looked fine on the mother board, I found this website on it, http://www.justrepairs.com/capacitor_mb.html,

This is what it says on that website:

Failure to boot .
Must attempt booting several times before machine will start.
Instability, especially when graphics are complex.
Bad odor comes from the computer (this is caused by capacitors shorting out and leaking), now the system is unstable or doesn't work anymore.
Bios health alarm (hi-low siren) at boot but PC health screen shows no reason for the alarm.
Fans spin up, power indicator lights up and nothing else happens.
Just doesn't work like it use to anymore.

This happend last week, I had to reboot computer several times before getting an image, the graphics instability is accurate also.. I am getting ready to take a hammer to this thing :), I will try to do to some of the other troubleshooting sugested tomorrow night. Thanks all for reading this long one..

ASKER

Dogzta,

I downloaded the prime 95 program, Its been running for the past 20 minutes, It raised the CPU temp to 71*C, here is a link to the snapshot, http://www.geocities.com/hooorses/test, the temperature goes from 71 to 70 back and forth, the chasis fan is not showing output because it is using another power source on the motherboard, I also have another fan on the side, that keeps it cool. What does it mean that this program runs for a long time, but when I use video it goes out in less than 2 minutes? Any Idea why 3dmark might work and not need for speed? Thanks in advance,

-cg

Choolgooz,
I like that capacitor website. It is basically what I've been telling all my clients/customres about when they get bad caps.... etc

71 C is quite high....I'd suggest checking it out.....depending on the tests, the tests may not stress everything else out like the games do.....so it is quite possible that the videocard is overheating as well..and not just the cpu....I'd definitely check the way the CPU was mounted again...and make sure the thermal compound is spread evenly and thin...and not too much. should be less than paper thin....and only on the die.

Yep, I agree with Wakeup.
Try cleaning your cooler, upgrading your cooler or whatever you have to do to get the temp of your CPU down.
Some videocards also have monitoring software so you can also check the GPUs temperature. See if yours also has this.

Yeah, 71* is WAY too hot. You probably need to reapply the thermal 'grease' on the heatsink base, or verify the heatsink has not shifted. Are any of the fans in your case blowing air out? At the least, the fan in the power supply should be blowing some very warm air out, if its not that might be the problem. Try running the system with the case open and a small household (desk/floor) fan blowing air into the case and see how it does.

dogztar

ASKER

Hi All,

. I have left the prime 95 running now since last night, almost 12 hours, the CPU has been at 100% the entire time, the temperature is a constant 70, I think everyone is right on the CPU temperature being too high, but is this the reason the computer keeps rebooting or another concern? I though that if i let the program run for a while it would reboot the computer, but its been running for 12hrs now. Anyone know of anyprograms that will let me check the settings for my video card, gainward geforce 4 ti 4200, 128 ram? When I was using the voodoo card, I didnt have any games that use the 3d from it, but it crashed when i was installing norton anti virus, it makes me thing that was just a fluke and that the Nvida card is what is bad, I will take a look into the video card tonight. THanks again to everyone for the help. Also does anyone know of diagnostic tools for the motherboard to test that out?

cg

>>Anyone know of anyprograms that will let me check the settings for my video card, gainward geforce 4 ti 4200, 128 ram?
You might want to try running 3dmark 2001 for a few hours, just set it to loop 100x at the maximum resolution with all things set to the max and see if that'll put a lot of strain on your videocard/processor and causes shutdowns. http://www.madonion.com

LucF

themr2man

if you can try another video card and if that fixes your proble...BINGO. If that fails then try another motherboard. Also you might want to download Memtest that you can put on a floppy and boot from...this will test your memory very thouroughly....if memory is bad it can reboot...but I doubt this is causing your problem.

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asmodeusnz

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tiranathon

One way you can counter act reboot effects (but this is quite dangerous!) is if you go into the bios, and find the part about tempuratures, and raise the values of the alarms, mines set to shutdown at 60 degrees for example, but if yours runs at 70, then that would make it reboot constantly. if you raised the alarm value to 75 or something this may cure your problem, but also may lead to a perminantly damaged CPU...

I'd follow the advise of the others and upgrade/replace your CPU heatsink and fan, also ensure your video fan is ok, they are usaually the first to wig out.

choolgooz, you shouldn't even consider doing what tiranathlon just said, it could become one of your most expensive mistakes! Just check the cooler you have at the moment, or consider buying a better one.

LucF

Another possibility is that the thermal compound between the CPU and heatsink has somehow failed (dried up, leeched out, who knows). Check that you applied a *VERY* thin skim of heatsink "grease" to the core of the CPU when you installed the heatsink, you only need a tiny amount to fill imperfections in the base of the heatsink. You do NOT want a big glob of thermal grease in there, that can make things worse!

-dog

Reguardless of it rebooting or not....70+ degrees is too high. And running at hot temperatures for a long time (12+ hours) can cause more damage than good....Just because it doesn't reboot, doesn't mean it is working properly in that scenario. First things first, fix your heat problem with the CPU then go from there to see if anything else is damaged. I would tend to think the reason why it is rebooting is because in your 12 hour test it didnt do the same things or have the proper sequence of things like when you play a game, and then it crashes. So fix the cPU thing first....then see about the rest of the machine. One step at a time.....we know one problem....so if we fix it, then we can eliminate and move on. Otherwise every other test or everything else you do is still based on a 70+ degree problem plus whatever else is going on.

ASKER

Thanks wakeup and everyone else for all their advice, I dont have time to do all these things right now so I am going to distribute the points between everyone so i dont forget. One last question, When i replaved the 1800 with the 2600 I swapped the fans also, should I have put greese on the chip after putting the fan back on? Maybe this is the cause... Whats the best way to clean dried greese and put on new ones? Thanks in advance.

You can clean it off with rubbing alcohol , don't use water or any sort of soap though and be sure to dry it thoroughly when done. just use a qtip/cotton swap to clean it off.

-dog*

Also, let us know what ends up happening and the eventual resolution (if you find one!)

Good luck!

Glad to help ;-)

fyi. Normally I remove the thermal paste with a razor blade. Afterwards it'll be perfectly clean and it'll be easy to apply new thermal paste.

LucF

Pete Long

ThanQ

No prob....let us know how things are going....

DennisFord

Ok, I really haven't seen this explored, but I am nearly sure that if you run anything really intensive on your computer (like games) and you shut down at random times, but usually relatively quickly, I am certain that your power supply is either insuffecient or in bad shape. I have run into this exact same problem several times in my life with my own systems and systems I repair. Everytime its been the power supply. They seem to go often. If you have another one, of a larger wattage, give it a shot. I'm sure that will help.

megakingbob

I had the same motherboard and so did a friend of mine and the both of us had the same problem, it was not graphics power or anything, i replaced the motherboard in the end and that was that. Got an ASRock K7S8X for £21 from eclipse computers that solved it and it's a better motherboard by far.

svalli

See my comments on topic "Random Reboots" . Helped me ..

rmcferren

70 Degrees C seems high. My system is so old that I can safely run the POST without a fan. (Pentium 166 MHz Socket 5/7) I don't know if that will cause damage, but watch the temp. Check the video card too as already said. Make sure all fans are blowing outward, as it is easier to pull cool air in then it is to let hot air try to seep out. Try to get something more complex than a fan heatsink combination. The BIOS warnings SHOULD NOT WORK on 2k and XP as they are built to "Ignore the BIOS." Anything based on NT is like that A good example of this happened in my A+ training with a few other things. The BIOS settings for the serial ports did not affect Windows 2000. The BIOS on my computer did not support the 30 GB hard drive, but Windows 2000 was able to format it completly upon setup. Other operating systems that seem to bypass and/or ignore the BIOS (except for loading the Kernel) are:
UNIX
LINUX
Windows NT 4.0 (Serial Port Problems at least)

>>The BIOS warnings SHOULD NOT WORK on 2k and XP as they are built to "Ignore the BIOS."
No, these do most certainly work to shutdown the system. The BIOS monitors the CPU temp and if it gets too high, it shuts the system down, regardless of what OS you're running.

dogztar

WWildBill-2

I have had a similar problem, it all started happening after bios updates. Have you guys thought of this? After future updates it stopped in frequency, now it does it rarely.

Specs:
AMD Athlon 3000+ Barton Processor
Windows XP Home
Asus A7N8X-Delux MB
2 sticks 512 ddr pc2700 ram run in dual sync. mode at 333 FSB
Leadtek Winfast Ti4200 with 8x AGP VID card, Model:A280 LE TD

WWildBill-2:

You need to create your own question instead of tagging onto the end of this one where no one will see your question. Click here:

http:askQuestion.jsp

-dog*

GrowlyMKII

Friend of mine has the exact same problem. Except with him, it's slightly more complicated - he doesn't have heat issues for one.

The motherboard he has is fine too. Hmmm...