Random Reboot's After Installing F@H

[Spectre]

[Spectre]

I Will Find You
Joined
Aug 29, 2004
Messages
24,889
So I installed F@H on one of my pc's at home that I usually use for web surfing. Anyway's the last two days I have gotten 2 reboot's...like power off...then power back on reboot's with the usual windows has recovered from a serious error. Could F@H be responsible? I would really like to keep it on this PC but if it is going to keep doing this........

The PC is a AXP 1500+ 768 mb DDR266 Shuttle AK31 rev 2 and some generic case power supply.

:mad:
 
Check the usual, temps too high, possible over clock too high and or perhaps that generic PSU isn’t quite cutting it for 100% CPU usage.

Luck
 
Well the CPU is reading 55c after the reboot running at 10x133=1333, 1.73v.
 
Is that overclocked? those temps seem a little high if you are at idle. Perhaps you can bring that voltage down a little?

 
An alternative is to throttle back F@H to less than 100% cpu usage.
 
Mayhem33 said:
Is that overclocked? those temps seem a little high if you are at idle. Perhaps you can bring that voltage down a little?

Click to expand...

That is stock @100% cpu load for F@H right at reboot. In the last couple hours or so the cpu temp has only bumped to 58c and the voltages on the rails seem to be staying within 5%.

So
:confused:

I really don't want to have to throttle it back to less than 100% because that was the first thing I tired and I got one a reboot at 80%.
 
What ver of windows are you running? also do a complete virus/crapware scan just to be on the safe side. If possible leave the case open and see if that doesn't help with the temps a bit... If you exit f@h and fire up a game(ut, q3, serious sam, etc), if any are installed, is the machine still stable??
 
Well the CPU cooler is a Volcano 5 it is running at ~4900rpm at full load. The case is a generic POS with 1 80mm in front and 1 in back....and the psu fan. The exhaust is warm but doesn't seem to be too hot. The cas temp is reporting as 34c. I am rather stumped. It does this random reboot crap within the first 1-2 hours it is on and then it seems to be fine for the next 4-5 before the pc get's shut down again.
 
Also remember that those temps are probably being taken from the thermistor in the CPU socket which means the actual temp of the CPU could be much higher.

Check your heatsink and make sure that it's clean and the fan is still running good. You may want to add a case fan or two if there aren't any in the case. If the case is cluttered you may want to try to clean up the wires and stuff like that.

Another thing to do no matter what is run Prime95 and Memtest to make sure the RAM and CPU aren't flaky.

Also look the motherboard over and see if it has any busted or leaking caps. That can also cause major instability.

One final thing would be to put another power supply in it if you have one and see if the problems go away. If they do, the power supply isn't up to snuff.

 
ByteDown[H]ard said:
What ver of windows are you running?
Click to expand...
XP Home

also do a complete virus/crapware scan just to be on the safe side.
Click to expand...

That was my first thought....so I went nuts with symantec, panda, spybot, ad-aware, stinger, and spysweeper. Big goose egg.

If possible leave the case open and see if that doesn't help with the temps a bit... If you exit f@h and fire up a game(ut, q3, serious sam, etc), if any are installed, is the machine still stable??
Click to expand...

I haven't tried. I usually use this machine for spinning off DVD's(legal ones I record classes from DV to DVD for a couple of prof's for some extra money). I might still have mechwarior mercenaries on it but I usual game on a different pc. I will check,
 
SmokeRngs said:
Also remember that those temps are probably being taken from the thermistor in the CPU socket which means the actual temp of the CPU could be much higher.

Check your heatsink and make sure that it's clean and the fan is still running good. You may want to add a case fan or two if there aren't any in the case. If the case is cluttered you may want to try to clean up the wires and stuff like that.
Click to expand...

Hopeful I get through this work unit in the next few minutes. I will pull the pc then and check that over.

Another thing to do no matter what is run Prime95 and Memtest to make sure the RAM and CPU aren't flaky.
Click to expand...

That will be second on the list.

Also look the motherboard over and see if it has any busted or leaking caps. That can also cause major instability.
Click to expand...

I swear if there are I will kill someone.

One final thing would be to put another power supply in it if you have one and see if the problems go away. If they do, the power supply isn't up to snuff.

Click to expand...
Don't have any extra's but I was going to make the pilgrimage to microcenter tomorrow. I might just see abut grabbing a sonata since they are having that 20% sale...and check it with that :D
 
Like SmokeRngs said, check the HSF unit, pop it off , clean it up and re-apply some artic silver, I have to do that once a year with some of the durons and XPs i leave on 24/7. I have had power supplies that flake out also, everything seems to be running fine then it just goes to lunch..:confused: Get a can of air and make sure you blow out all the dust if its been awhile also... My sister killed a power supply, it was choked with dust and it overheated, lucky it didn't kill everything else with it...:rolleyes:
 
Spectre said:
Well the CPU cooler is a Volcano 5 it is running at ~4900rpm at full load. The case is a generic POS with 1 80mm in front and 1 in back....and the psu fan. The exhaust is warm but doesn't seem to be too hot. The cas temp is reporting as 34c. I am rather stumped. It does this random reboot crap within the first 1-2 hours it is on and then it seems to be fine for the next 4-5 before the pc get's shut down again.
Click to expand...

Well I chopped a big hole in the front of my case and installed 120mm fan in the front and 2 80mm fans in the rear. I was able to feel the top of my case getting very warm with a cd wallet on top. (remove the wallet and feel it) That is how i found out that my case was not moving enough air through it. Im sure you keep your cables neatly tied up, but it is worth a check.
In my opinion it is best to have your intake and exhaust as matched as possible. As in move the same amount of air in as out!
You might also check and see wich direction you cpu fan is blowing, I have it blowing at the HS.
Good luck and I hope this helps!

 
Mayhem33 said:
Well I chopped a big hole in the front of my case and installed 120mm fan in the front and 2 80mm fans in the rear. I was able to feel the top of my case getting very warm with a cd wallet on top. (remove the wallet and feel it) That is how i found out that my case was not moving enough air through it. Im sure you keep your cables neatly tied up, but it is worth a check.
In my opinion it is best to have your intake and exhaust as matched as possible. As in move the same amount of air in as out!
You might also check and see wich direction you cpu fan is blowing, I have it blowing at the HS.
Good luck and I hope this helps!

Click to expand...

Well it finished it's wu about 45 minutes ago so I am pulling it know. Here is for hoping no leaking caps. I will check the cpu fan direction since i can't remember which direction it is running. The cabling is fair to partly neat :p

ByteDown[H said:
ard]Like SmokeRngs said, check the HSF unit, pop it off , clean it up and re-apply some artic silver, I have to do that once a year with some of the durons and XPs i leave on 24/7. I have had power supplies that flake out also, everything seems to be running fine then it just goes to lunch.. Get a can of air and make sure you blow out all the dust if its been awhile also... My sister killed a power supply, it was choked with dust and it overheated, lucky it didn't kill everything else with it...
Click to expand...

It should be pretty clean I normally clean it one every two months or so. Although in the 4years I have run this particular machine i have never pulled the HSF so.......might be time if there doesn't seem to be anything else wrong.
 
Well the caps all look good. Light coating of dust on the videocard and sound card......really heavy on the northbridge fan. The HSF has some dust not a lot. I am going to clean it up and set prime95 to run tonight and see what I get in the morning. Thanks guys....I'll be back on the flip side with results. Hopefully I can have this folding again tomorrow.
 
You mentioned the system has a Volcano 5 heatsink on it. Make sure the fan is blowing onto the heatsink. It will not work as well trying to pull hot air from the heatsink. I've used a few Volcano 5 & 6 series heatsinks on some budget systems and they work well on lower power non-overclocked systems, you just have to make sure the fan is blowing onto the heatsink.

 
Well I had set up the Volcano to pull through the heatsink(good call smoke) and there was dust all through out the HSF. Unfortunately, after cleaning it I fired up prime95 and 15 minutes into it the system straight up black screened on me :eek: So I cut it off and then back on after which it proceeded to run prime 95 fine for about 3 hours until the noise was bugging me(pc is literally next to my bed.....which is why it doesn't run 24/7). The entire time it ran prime95 it was a constant 63c-64c on the cpu.

So today I shall make a pilgrimage to microcenter and get a new HSF, some artic silver(barely any left at home), and a new case(hopefully a sonata). Between those three I hope to get it up and folding this evening or tomorrow morning. I check back in later.
 
lets us know how it goes. If possible, and you have 2 or 3 sticks of ram in the machine, test them individually with prime 95/memtest. If you have a flaky stick of ram this will help weed it out...
 
OK back from Microcenter/Fry's. I got a Coolermaster Aero7+, arctic silver, and the Sonata :D it was 59 at fry's. The Aero7+ looks to be pretty tight.....so I am going to run memtest on the three sticks individual(thanks byte) before I go about the great case migration.
 
Spectre said:
OK back from Microcenter/Fry's. I got a Coolermaster Aero7+, arctic silver, and the Sonata :D it was 59 at fry's. The Aero7+ looks to be pretty tight.....so I am going to run memtest on the three sticks individual(thanks byte) before I go about the great case migration.
Click to expand...

You got an Antec Sonata with the 380s PSU for $59? That is a killer deal on a great case. Nice
 
Yeah it is a MIR but hey it is a Sonata.

Anyway......all three sticks passed memtest. So I got rather pissed and decided to run 3DMark 2001SE.......failed all 3 times I get an error that says:

Reliable benchmarking cannot continue because the 3dmark window lost focus

So I am a little puzzled why this would come up after I install F@H and not any other time. Anyone know what this error means? I think bottom line it means the ole GeForce 3 has finally taken a dirt nap....but......

I will probably post this in the videocard section but I wanted to put it up here since you guys have been awesome at helping me getting this thing sorted out.

:confused: :mad: :confused:
 
Sounds like a sweet deal... Have you installed the new hsf and tried the new power supply and then run prime95? If so is it still doing the random reboot? Not sure about the 3DMark 2001SE problem, i havent used it in forever but then i didn't find it truely useful. One last thing after trying all the other troubleshooting stuff and your still(or if) the problem persists, is to wipe the drive, re-format and re-install the os. There is always the off chance the HDD is flaking out also, just something to keep in mind..
 
In the process of moving the parts and installing the new HSF/arctic silver. Should have it all up again in a few. I did a clean install on windows just before I started folding......and the hardrive is ~3 month old WD 120gb SE. IF it is flaking :mad:

But I shall check everything again one I am up again.
 
Spectre said:
In the process of moving the parts and installing the new HSF/arctic silver. Should have it all up again in a few. I did a clean install on windows just before I started folding......and the hardrive is ~3 month old WD 120gb SE. IF it is flaking :mad:

But I shall check everything again one I am up again.
Click to expand...

I had a 120 gig WD SE drive die on me in about 5 months. I was really annoyed by it although I saw some problems and had everything copied off so I didn't lose anything.

I will say I liked the RMA process though. Got the online RMA, sent the drive off and had a new one back within a week of sending the bad one off. I was really surprised. They even 2 day aired the drive to me and according to the sticker on the drive, it was manufactured either the same day it was shipped to me or the day before. Also, it has been running like a champ since.

 
I got everything moved and I moved the computer into another room so it could run prime95 all night and it passed. On a psoitive note after running prime95 all night in the new setup it only measured a proc temp of 49c!

I checked the drive with WD's Data Lifegaurd Diagnostic and it was clear. So I pulled the video card and put in a PCI card I have and ran 3DMark2001SE, it passed all 3 times......I on the otherhand hand at least a half dozen seizures. :eek: Unfortunately that card is getting shipped out soon......So I guess the GeFOrce 3 has finally bitten it and was causing the problem. Time to go shopping again

:rolleyes:

Thanks for all the help guys I will get this one back up and folding ASAP. If I missed something to try let me know.

Edit: Fixed spelling.
 
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