Rebooting in the middle while working in an application

Is there anything left in the Event Viewer to give you a clue on why it was rebooting?

Look inside the machine and double check to make sure that all of the fans are still running, and that none of them are clogged with dust.  Does the machine seem all-around warmer than usual inside?

I have also seen power supply issues that have caused random reboots.  A sometimes quick fix is reseating memory, cpu, and and PCI cards.  Also, try updating at least your chipest and video card drivers.

If this is Windows XP, turn off the automatic reboot after bluescreen option.  This will help us determine whether this is a hardware reboot, or just a bluescreen that you can't see because it flashes too fast.  To disable this, right click on my computer, go to properties, go to the advanced tab, click on settings under "startup and recovery," and then uncheck automatically restart under "System Failure."

I followed your suggestion. I turned off automatic restart:
I checekd the event viewer. there were three sections under it. 1. application, 2. security and 3. system.
No. 1 and 2 dont seem to have anything unusal, or warnings and such recently at all.
No. 3 did show two red "X"'s.. and both said "ftdisk". When I looked for explanation.. it said something like check temp. space or so.. Not sure what this means. Am I running our of page file space or something? I am running at this time when the crash occured a chessprogram. It does take 100% cpu time when it is running. Also, as I have mentioned before, the  temperatures do seem to raise by a good 10 deg C or so during chess program. But I have always run these in past and before crash it usually gives an alarm to indicate the temperatures are close to threshold. That used to only happen during summertime typically not in the winter.

The odds are it's not your CPU but your memeory thats the problem, if it Hardware at all. Sounds like a memory allocation conflict. Try unloading all of your undeed application and services before you start you game:
goto Vipers Web Page: http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/articles.htm#Windows_XP_Home
You'll find some nice info on setting your computer up for gaming purposes.

Lazarus

If your chess game is taking up 100% CPU, that is another problem in and of itself.  I would make sure your video card drivers and directx is updated.  Also try reinstalling the game and checking to see if the game has any updates/patches.

In regards to the rebooting, ftdisk usually does have something to do with a pagefile/memory problem.  Try deleting your "pagefile.sys" file and then reboot and let the system rebuild one when it reboots.  Make sure to reseat the memory like I suggested in the first post.

Did you recently add any new memory to this machine?

See if you can paste that exact error message from the system log.

I have not added any memory recently. It has been sitting there for may be two years now.
No hardware added other than a recent replacement of my wilred router with wireless router both by linksys (about  a week now).
Everything on my computer is with the latest. i routinely do a check and always update. So no problems shouls be there. However, i shall go one more time for any updates for my graphics card.

I stopped my game for an hour or so and let my computer idle with only mirc in the background since I requested for some downloads. And nothing happened so far.

the exact message is here

" Configuring the Page file for crash dump failed. Make sure there is a page file on the boot partition and that is large enough to contain all physical memory."

Event type is Error:  Event id 49 and source ftdisk
Those are the details I found when I double click on the "event " from even log screen.

I have been using my computer for playing chess for over 10 or so years now.. Thes chess playing programs when they are running, if you try to check the processes, usually they take all the cpu time available.. there is no set limit I suppose.. however, if you want to do on side some additional work it does let you do it.  I know people who run their computers overnight on a specific position of chess trying to do some in depth analysis. So this is all common and nothing unusual.  
Well if the memory went bad because of age or what ever then I am not sure. It certainly can happen because during the chess position analysis, the program creates "hash tables" in tho memory ( i have 1 gig of memory).. and if some bad spot is there may be it could happen then.  I am not sure what is causing but I need to no for sure what is happening then i can do some repairs.

I am suspecting it has something to do with your pagefile. I would personally make your pagefile grow a bit more .. eventhough windows should do this automaticly if it runs out of space...

1. Right click my computer, properties
2. In properties go to the advanced tab and select the first button.
3. Make your pagefile sys a bit more larger than what is stated there. if its 384 .. boost it up to 450 ...

Also remember to make the maximum a bit larger also.

Please have in mind to Apply The settings before closing the property box.

More info on pagefile:
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

maybe you can find some cool info there ...

Also ... how much free space do you have on your %systemdrive%

I followed your instructions and could not see pagefile.sys and min max setting there... All i see is virtual memory and some number associated with it. Actually i had to chose "performance", then "advanced" tab again.. and then I see "virtual memory" when I click it, it shows all the drives I have and page files alloted. As it stands now.. I have C:, D:, E:, F:, ANd G: drives and D: has a page file 1.5 Meg. All other drives have no page file.
I followed the link you gave. The information there went well over my head. I have no clue.

You where right, the virtual memory is the pagefile.  1.5MB is way to small.  That should be about 5-10 MB more then the conventional memory you have.  So it should most likely 525MB or 1035MB.

One other thing, before setting that higher try to defragement your HDD first, that will help your pagefile work better.

YES .... see .. thats were your problems resides ... its your pagefile.

Since your pagefile is too small, your OS doesn't have any where to store memory bits on your HD when needing to free Memory space ...

The correct calculation to know how much space to save for your pagefile is your total memory amount times 1.5

this means that if you have 512 MB you should have set a minimum of 768 MB and a maximum of +150 which would be about 1000 MB

In my system I have a total of 1Gig Ram ... so I have a 1.5GB pagefile ...

Sorry I couldn't pin-point the correct location of pagefile configuration .... I am currently on a Spanish Computer ...

Please remember when changing the pagefile size to actually SET the amount before closing the properties box ...
To know that you correctly set the pagefile, the PC will ask you to reboot.

Remember that you must have Administrator Privligies ...

The site is yes a bit confusing ... sorry about that ...

Sorry for misleading you. But my pagefile is actually 1536 MB.. I Misread it as KBytes. My mistake. So nothing wrong with page file actually.
but when I click on the change button it brings a new screen showing all the various drives on my computer and only one drive shows that it has page file allotted. This is D: drive where my windows OS resides. Not sure whether I should have a page file in every one of the drives. I have one huge C: drive and a second hard drive with D:, E:, F:, and G: partitions. my C: has windows ME and my D: has windows XP.
I have not tried my chess program for over 6 or so hours now and my computer is running continuously without any problem.. I have to almost conclude that it is the heat generated by the chess program that is doing this?

you should only have a page file on 2 sepearte drives IDE0 and IDE1. The best being the fastest but you reall always need a minimum on your Boot Drive. The rest can be placed on your other if you like.
Your conclusion is leading you back to a Memory conflict of some kind. Try what I said prior and see what happens. Memory problems are normally pretty hard to pinpoint either way.

It just happened again finally after some 6 hours of continuous running.. or idling.. not much cpu operations during that time. I was tring to do some TEMGEnC stuff to combing three huge files (each about 800 MB) and make into DVD compliant gaint file so that I can make a DVD movie later. Ofcourse such operation also needs lots of memory and cpu I suppose.. not sure. It ran like about 5 to 10 minutes or so.. I was doing something else which involved only light CPU usuage anyway.. Then it suddenly booted. I thought I did the Uncheck on auto restart etc.. as someone here suggested.. but when I looked into the event log. I didnt see any warning, or error or anything at all.. every even looked normal. Why? Wasn't it supposed go into Blue S O D mode where i can see which process caused the problem etc.. This is really getting stick and frustrating now. Havent done removing memory and reseating etc.. didnt quite want to open the box yet but I may have to it as my next step.

comment to lazarus98 ... I only have page file on D:.. may be I need to create one on C: as well.. But Now I am almost certain it is not a pagefile issue anyway.. It must be connected with operations involving intensive memory and CPU usage. like chess playing program or DVD authoring/encoding etc..

Thats what I see too from what your saying. Please give wha tI linked you to a try.
Memory even though it worked well in the past can still go bad. (various and numerous reasons) but you can check them out with some stress testing.
But I feel that it's probably just a conflict of some sort. Thats not an easy nut to crack there.

Ok ... I see where you are going.

I recomend then to do the following. Restart the DVD creation process. The computer will reboot. When it does enter your BIOS and check out System Temp ... specially processor Temp. It shouldn't be more than 45ºC/50ºC for an Intel Processor. AMD is usually higher ...

If the Temp is 50 or more, try opening your PC case and checking out your Fan and heatsink. Consider replacing the Joint Compound/THERMAL GREASE - I recomend something like this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3673&item=6744183897&rd=1

It is pretty cheap and works great. If not any other Thermal Compound is also ok.

But this is just if your Processor is actually going at those Temp.

Usually Intel Processors reboot the system if temp is to high so thats normal. But it would be more normal for the PC to freeze ... not to reboot.

What Processor and MotherBoard do you have?

Although, in a second thought I recall AMD computers to freeze and Intel Processors to Reboot so it could be.

If you consider replacing the compound ... please have in mind that you should be extremely carefull ...

You must make sure you don't go into direct contact with any component as to not leave any grease on the component. Consider using some gloves.

Make sure you do not remove the processor, just the heatsink. I would get the manual of the processor and mobo to see if there is any special considerations ...

Well, before I keep on talking lets get some of your feedback ...

what you are suggesting is really somewhat dangerous.. to remove existing chip and use compound and reseat... hmm.. that is scary indeed. Also who told you Intel processors run only upto 50... that is plain wrong. the threshold on those processors ( specially above 2.5 Ghz) is like 68 C or so... the system zone temperature is like 50 C... Mine doesnt go that high at all... running Chess programs may make it as high as 58 or so.. only in winter time.. No that is not the reason .. and no one should remove the chip with its existing heat sink etc.. in place.. unless it is the last resort. who knows it may eventually come to that.
My intel processor is actually 2.56 GHz.. and the motherboard is also made by Intel... donno the brand name off hand. It was built may be three years ago by now.. may be it lasted long enough.
By the way the Bios doesnt show temp. that is for AMD chips with some motherboards.. they have that feature. Intel motherboards come with active monitors which sit in the systray always showing the temperatures at the asking.

If I were you I'd get some program to benchmark my CPU.
Let it work... severely.
If it reboots then too it's the CPU.

Same for the memory.

If neither is it your chess program might have gotten corrupt... virus? spyware? etc.

Falcon, again I think you are right, pulling apart the cpu can be dangerous and we should leave that for a later step (which I do fear we may endup getting to).  Because it restarts without any log it does sound like a hardware problem (tho drivers aren't out of the question) What if you use something like http://users.bigpond.net.au/cpuburn/ to put a different load on just your cpu.  The thing about the video processing is that is also HDD intensive.  
I would also make sure the drive with your page file is defragemented.  You may want to boot off a floppy or CD and then delete your pagefile.sys, it will recreate it the next time you boot normally.  Or set your page file to another HDD and reduce the one on your C drive to the smallest it can be (2mb or so).  

i tried to fool around with pagefile a bit.. changing its size etc..
Now i come to conclusion.. it is not the pagefile.
Everything was working fine till about two days ago or so.. and then this developed. To me since no new programs added nor hardware added other than the router replacement..  all this leads only to  cpu, motherboard or Memory chips.. one of them developed some kind of bad bits or something I dont know. But I dont believe it has anything to do with virus, spyware or program ccrrupt etc.. that is pure nonsense.

Falcon,

I believe you misunderstood my post. I said not to remove the chip but to replace the thermal grease.
If you think that Temp of 68ºC is a normal Temp for Intel Processor ... well .. ummm .. what can I say ....

Extracted from Intel Website Under the Title "Intel Pentium 4 Processor Thermal Specifications" ( http://support.intel.com/support/processors/pentium4/sb/CS-007999.htm ):

Systems based on Pentium 4 processors 2.80 GHz (and below) should have a maximum expected temperature of 40°C in the maximum expected external ambient (which is typically 35°C). Systems based on Pentium 4 processors 3 GHz (and above) should have a maximum expected temperature of 38°C in the maximum expected external ambient (which is typically 35°C).

You can also find specific instructions on how to remove the Heatsink and replace the thermal grease.... I believe from what I have read that you must call technical support for instructions.

Unless you have any other comments I believe this might be your problem ... A virus would not restart your computer .... and a trojan would definitly not restart it ... I mean ... a hacker would lose connection ... or if it were spyware sending spam emails with your connection .. rebooting your pc would only make the spamming process slower .... it doesn't make sense.

I would seriously look into the Temp.... The only doubt I have is that you didn't state if your processor was Pentium or Celeron ....

Hope I could help you out ... cheers ...

if you remove the heat sink etc in a boxed set you should remove and use new thermal grease material. The problem is it is not easy if you are not used to doing such things like I am. Also It is recommended never to do that anyway.
Also about the temperatures, I have had lots of discussion with intel technical support to clear some doubts in my mind when I first acquired this system. The core temperature of CPU is the highest temperature.. and this should not exceed 68 C for a 2.53 Ghz processor.. and usually for normal applications this remains under 50C. But intense games can drive that up in a hurry and intel active thermal monitor alerts when that happens and also records the details in a log. That is why I said 58 -60 is ok. Infact I checked this very fact with Intel tech support.
Then there are other locations where they put sensors and Intel active monitor measures temperature. Actually for my mother board there are only two locations. one is core of cpu.. and other is somewhere in the neighborhood.. this temperature is around 50 in summer time etc.. specially if you have no Air etc.. Also, during games play this can go as high as even 55. the monitor trips the alert messages whenever it hits 50 C.  Anyway, believe it or not there is not a whole lot we can do as long as we insist on higher speeds etc.. back when we were in under 1 GHz range the temperature was hardly a problem. Now it is a serious problem for sure. I have completely opened my box from both sides just for this. IT is ugly but  temperatures tend to get lower too.. Also in summers I run a external fan and blow across air to cool it. I hate it but donno what to do. I knew bit bit I am frying eventually my system and I hoped that I will get my moneys worth of use by that time and now three years later may be that time has come.
I fully agree and all along suspected the problem lies with heat. He we concur. I didn't believe pagefil or virus or corruption of programs did that. ever. But while you are at it, read the thermal management files for the mother board that i have which is 845GBV and chip is Intel Pentium 4 478 pin, 2.53 GHz... It may be hard to get those files but they are archived I believe at Intels site. But they are usually listed in the discontinued files area.

I've worked on literally thousands of computers and never had a problem changing out a CPU or HEAT SINK / FAN. As long as you do it right there is no real danger. The only real danger in doing so is not knowing what your doing.

As for Temp, the hotter it runs the more prone to internal errors. That goes for Memory as well and HDD's and almost all electronics. Heat is the enemy. And the older your computer is the more likely it is to it, since heat breaks done things slowly but surely.

Good luck with your finding the fix on it.

comment to UICE and lazarus 98

Well we all are in complete agreement here. Heat is the reason. I have seen memory, and HD problems and BSODs many times but not like this one. But I had to eliminate all possible causes before I go to the last resort. Change the heat sink and fan with the one you suggested. That sound cheap enough to try.
As far as 60 C... that is perfectly alright for Intel Processors.. Right from day one it was doing it and right away i called Intel tech support and got their blessing that that was perfectly normal and nothing to worry.

Well the next steps I am taking are just kind clean, dust off.. reseat the memory chips etc... and try again. Now that I know how to recreate the problem it is not so difficult. Even thought it appears like random event, I know by doing either DVD encoding or Playing chess I can crash it.  By the way, I also do a lot of SVCD to DVD conversions etc.. sometimes it takes as many has 8 hours to completely do a DVD from three SVCDs... and it is intense I/O and CPU work too..

I am truly surprised that your intel 2.6 Ghz never goes beyond 50 C.. may be you have an airconditioned room with real low temperature or you never used your cpu to analyze a chess position with a program. those suckers run CPU at 100%.

You might want to check out this post mate ...
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21312041/System-Crash-Beeping-Nonstop-Help.html

I commented on that also, and it seems like MBM was the one causing the problem after all ... hmm ...

Anyways, back to you ... What can I say. All I know is that ever since a Heat burst broke one of my 200 GB Harddrives ... I have never stopped being paranoid about Temp ....

I have fans on my hard drives ... 2 fans on my case ... and I always make sure my processor doesn't go over 50ºC.

My room is not air conditioned ... at all .. I live in South America. It was 30 Degrees down here today .. and it never passed 45 today. I checked that out all day before making this post.
To be honest I didn't run anything at 100% CPU though ....

Maybe I should try a chess program like that on my PC. You got any link to it, so I can reproduce what your PC does on mine and give you the feedback?

As for your original problem ... mate... what can I say, I really can't think of anything else ... except for that thread I followed here at EE ...

Good luck ...

I am also paranoid about heat. Prior to this computer I used to have AMD chip computer. I had my motherboard and cpu replaced 4 times within the one year warranty period then I gave with exasperation. It used to heat up like crazy.  I have airconditioned room. Outside the temperature is below zero! It is snowing even but these damn chips keep getting heated. Chess programs are the worst enemies for CPUs still I used the last three years with no heat related problem. Only during the past three days. well You better believe it Chess program when started can heat up the cpu by as much as 20 to 25 deg C. from its normal temperature. You have not seen so you dont know. I have lots of programs for chess and I know it does heat up. Unfortunately I dont know any link... but may be you should try www.chessbase.com and somewhere there they have a program chessbase light which is freely downloadable. Then you install and set up any chess position and ask the fritz 4.01 engine to analyze. Unless you are familiar with atleast some chess you are probably going to get lost .. well good luck!

By the way fans dont do didly squat to the temp. on cpu. they just make more noice. I have taken readings with and without fans etc. finally I came to the conclusion that when you remove both sides you get best possible cooling.. the fans are only name sake. Ofcourse the fan right on cpu top does cool it a bit.. My case has 5 fans... just waste.

My CPU temp now. is only 36 C and chassis temp. 32.. but I am not doing anything.. that doesnt surprise me at all!

Comment to UICE
I read that episode with MBM. By the way, i used MBM myself a lot in past. But my present Intel motherboard came with its own active temperature monitoring program so I dont use anything else. You seem to be quite knowledgeable about these things, but I am surprised that you cant believe CPUs can easily go as high as 68 C!  These chips are infact tested even higher temperatures. In order to keep the linear response of the chips they use a factor of safety etc.. and come up with some upper limit. That is what it can go upto if the ambient temperature is high and the cpu is functioning full speed.. If the room is airconditioned and kept around 70 F which is like 20 C I suppose.. you hardly have any problem. But In india and south america all bets off!

What can I say ... I am totally cluseless my dear friend.

I can't imagine what other posible reason is cuasing your PC to reboot all the time.

I am deeply sorry if I couldn't resolve your problem from here. Perhaps you should take in your PC for further Hardware analisys?

Maybe they'll find something out and replace the component causing the problem ....

UICE

By the way .. I will download a chess program with Fritz .... My brother plays chess alot, and if my memory doesn't betray me, Fritz is a type of Chess Bot that is highly popular among chess programs ...

I'll give it a try .. and post feedback on Temp ...

Cheers

I know this has been mentioned before but it could be a power supply problem.  An increase in cpu usage will cause an increase in power use.  It could just get to a point that the PSU can't handle.  This could be why burning a DVD also crashes it.  You said you had drive letters C: thru G: are those all drives or just partitions?  You could try unplugging a few of them and seeing if that helps.

This is really shot in the dark, it does sound like a CPU/Mem heat problem to me also.  The only thing that bothers me is most of the time with heat problems, if you turn the machine off for an hour and then turn it back on, it works longer before crashing then if you crash, power cycle and try again without waiting.

Did the load tester crash it?

It's possible you have a corrupt Macromedia Flash installation.  Try removing flash and reinstalling, and if all else fails blame MicroSoft and install a dedpendable OS (think LINUX).

Okay guys.. Thanks due to everyone who tried their best to help with my problem. I finally solved it. Now I know exactly what happened and why. Ofcourse only after trying several things I could arrive at the solution.

The reason is undoubtedly heat and UICE and I were all along betting on heat. Nothing to do with memory, pagefyl, virus, software etc etc...
By the way all those drive letters i have are because of partitions not because there were so many drives. So power suplly is not a problem either.

Any way today i took the final step which is to go inside and vaccume everything. Specially the cpu.. Also I used generous amount of compressed air. etc.. made it really clean.
Started my computer and checked the Intel active monitor for temperature. i was pleasantly surprised to see the temperature were rather low. Then I started my DVD program and tried to encode a huge file. The CPU reached 100% quickly and temperature started to raise too.. I kept my fingure crossed and started praying. When it reached 48 C, the fan reached its max. 3100.. and it remained steady there throughout the 3 hours that it took to encode. No problems whatsoever! There is the answer. And I think the points should definitely go to UICE. I am also going buy that copper heatsink he suggested for future.
Haven't tested my chess program but I know it wont be a problem. I guess going beyond 50 C is defnitely not wise.

Again thanks all.. and finally we have a happy ending here.

Very glad you could fix your problem mate.

I hope you'll have many more days of glorious chess games without having a reboot.

Hope to hear from you again sometime in the future my friend,

Greetings,

UICE