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Computer Randomly Reboots

H

HotL3@D

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 5, 2000
Messages
1,606
Cant' quite figure it out. Does it with Windows XP and Pro, Even on fresh installs of both. I believe it to be a hardware problem, but i cant quite figure out which component is the culprit. its almost like the reset button is pressed. Any suggestions? Also, it seems my RAM is fickle, i need to run it at a higher voltage for it to be stable, could it be the RAM?
 
It most certainly could be your ram. I'd say goto www.memtest.org and download memtest. It will create a bootable floppy, and you'll be able to find out if you memory is bad. What are the other specs of your system? Is your power supply a quality one?
 
havenoclu said:
It most certainly could be your ram. I'd say goto www.memtest.org and download memtest. It will create a bootable floppy, and you'll be able to find out if you memory is bad. What are the other specs of your system? Is your power supply a quality one?
Click to expand...


Well, i believe its a generic one that came with my raidmax case. i'll download memtest and see if the ram is the culprit. What about a failing hard drive?
 
Failing hard drive generally cause more lockups than reboots. If it's not your RAM, then your psu is almost certainly the culprit. Those two components are by far the most likely to cause reboots.
 
overheating is a possibility, but i HIGHLY doubt that is the case. The system is otherwise stable at all times and it will randomly reboot even while idling. I highly think its my RAM however, as i have to bump up the voltage on the ram to get it to even boot into windows. i'm running my ram at 2.8v. I've heard you have to up the voltage on this mushkin ram sometimes for it to be stable. I cant go any higher than 2.8, but after setting it to this its been stable so far.
 
It will crash...
Click to expand...

Memtest isn't actually likely to crash, but once you have booted from its floppy and started running it, it reports the number of errors that it has found in the test. Any errors are unacceptable but I would suspect to see quite a few if the RAM is truly the source of the problem.
 
I don't know why I said that...maybe a little too early when I posted :rolleyes: .

Maybe the best bet is to reset the BIOS to default settings, and move the RAM back up to 2.8v after resetting. If you have settings that you really want in the BIOS that I would trying to back off the timing a bit--but you haven't said you oc'ed...so I'm not sure if you should do that.
 
Well, i ran memtest for a few passes and it came up with no errors at all... So that leaves us with..... PSU Cutting out?
 
I would definitely check out that psu now. If you have a multimeter, test the voltages to make sure that they are very close to what they should be. If you don't have a multimeter or don't want to try that, swap the thing out.
 
Make sure your PSU's voltages are up around where they should be, and pretty damn near close to exact.

And don't try to run a 9800xt, 3 HDD's, 8 Fans, and a Dual processor system on a 200 watt PSU. In other words, make sure you aren't overloading your PSU. Generic ones are worse for this.
 
First of all i'd like to say thanks for the responses guys, you've been very helpful and very quick to respond as well.

OK, moving on...

I checked the power supply and its a raidmax 350W power supply (came with the case), So, with what i'm running, do you think that this could be the problem? Not enough power? I think i have a multimeter, but i'm embarassed to say i wouldnt know where to place the ground and voltage checker on the psu... Just put it up to the prongs on a power plug in? Oh, btw, since putting the ram up to 2.8v shes been rock solid stable...
 
The fact that your RAM didn't give errors but you need to give it more voltage to avoid reboots makes me think this is definitely the power supply.

For multimeter tests, I would remove your power supply and turn it on by shorting it. This is done by taking a paperclip or something similar and touching one end to the motherboard connector's green wire and the other end to any of the blacks.

After you've done that, just put the multimeter's prongs into the molex connector holes and such (make sure you do the mobo connector too). If you are not sure which to wires to read, don't worry about that, you should be able to recognize what is the 12 volt rail by its (hopefully) very close proximity to a 12 volt reading.
 
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