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Spontaneous rebooting

T

tommyknocker

n00b
Joined
Mar 23, 2004
Messages
3
I'm a longtime [H]ardreader, and I feel I have a pretty good feeling of hardware, but I don't know where to start with this.

My computer just spontaneously reboots. I'll be in the middle of doing something and I'll my BIOS screen, and be like, wtf. No warnings or slowdowns or anything. I haven't been able to isolate it to any specific software event or doing anything in particular. It happens every couple days, only when I'm working on it, and I cant make it do it.

I've got an Asus A7V600 running an AthlonXP 3200+ @ 400MHz w Barton. I keep my box running 24/7; my CPU temp is 138.2deg F, and a mobo temp of 100deg F. I only have 1 case fan (upper rear) and a PSU w 2 fans, but it doesn't appear cooling is the/a problem.
I'm running Win2k w SP4, all the updates. I'm not overclocking anything, and I'm running a high quality vid card/PSU/RAM.
I'm gonna run Prime97 to try to stress out my machine, but I don't think that will do it. Are there any other tests that could probe my resources or a background process that can save exactly the situation when the system reboots?

Any suggestions?
 
Usually rebooting is caused by CPU overheating, memory issues or PSU problems. You might want to make sure you have the current Via drivers, change your AGP in the Bios to 4X and see if that works. Also try Mem64 and see if your memory is the problem.
 
There have been several posts on the issue. I personaly experienced a similar situation 2 days ago just after attempting to help someone else in the very same issue.

It turns out a file in the Sound Blaster Task bar function was causeing an incompatiblity that would cascade to the video driver.

I was able to isolate the problem by disabling auto restart in the system recovery section of properites in the my computer applett.

I am not sure if wind 2k has a similar option.

Anyway, once i did that., a bsod instead of reboot with sound distoritions. The distorted sound lead me in the direction of the sound card and i realized i had ignored SB live updates for a long time. My event logs confirmed a driver issue. I updated the full software suit for my AUdigy and bang .........things are going smoothly.

The same update resolved the issue in one of the other threads.
 
Look first at your RAM and power supply. Test the RAM with memtest86 and test the power supply with a multimeter if you have one.

The overheat thing can be tested easily too, though it doesn' seem to be the problem. Open up your case and point a big fan at the mobo.
 
This can be caused by anything. What you want to do first is disable automatic restarts so you can see the error messages.

Win 2k/xp right? Right click My Computer -> Properties -> Advanced tab.

Startup and Recovery Settings. Uncheck Automatically Restart box.

Now report what messages you get when it restarts.

Anyways, first thing to do afterwards is to test memory with memtest86 or memtest+ to ensure it doesn't cause errors. If it's overheating, you'll have to check your cooling.

Anyways, tell us what error messages you get and we might be able to troubleshoot better.
 
yeah, many different variable could cause that, but if it's giving you an error without the auto restart, that may give a clue to what's doing it...
 
I'm doing a couple things to try to fix. I turned off the automatic reboots, but it decided to reboot there soonafter. I also found out that it's supposed to reboot to take effect for that setting, so :rolleyes:
I also set to perform a full memory dump each time instead of just a 64kb minidump. Using Microsoft's Windows Debugging Tools available, i poked around the existed minidump files and found a small reference to my AIM + DeadAIM + File Sharing (thru AIM), so I'll have to investigate that more.

I'm going to run memtest overnight to see if it finds any problems with the RAM.

I have a high quality 400W Enermax, but I'll stick the multimeter there to check out the voltages. I'm going thru all my drivers and trying to update them to the latest. I have a ATi 9600 SE, should i really be setting the AGP to 8X? I know that used to be recommended in the past, but is it still?

I'll try all these things and come back if it's unresolved.

Much thanks.
 
this can also be a symptom of bad capacitors. altough the epidemic seemed to affect boards that would be a few years old now.
 
I ran the memory tests, came back with no problems. I'm using the latest Via drivers. I used Motherboard Monitor to check all my voltages. Even after switching the different types of configs, they were all wrong. The BIOS voltage reports and a voltmeter were almost dead on, all rails above/at spec. I'm using an Antec SL400 (400W), btw.

Overheating is not an issue.

I'm fairly sure I've isolated the reboots/BSODs to incidents where people are transfering files from me via AIM. I had Kerio firewall installed, but the service was set to manually start (would not autostart), which doesn't make sense because the kernel driver displayed as the crash in the latest BSOD. A KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED error, if you would; the driver at fault being fwdrv.sys.

I've since uninstalled Kerio and ripped out that file and all traces from the registry. We'll see if this fixes it.
 
Yes, Kerio BSODed my machine too. Version 4 does that to you. I scrapped it and went with ZoneAlarm.
 
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