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Strange Problem, Help Appreciated.

O

ObscureShape

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 11, 2002
Messages
64
Hi..
Im having a very strange problem with my PC atm that I cant sort out for the life of me.

The entire setup works fine, its all perfect.. Until randomly, it just restarts. As it restarts i hear the Hard Disk making a sound, then im back into the startup sequence.

I assumed this was a HDD problem, so I swapped over HDD's, reinstalled windows etc.. But it still happens. Its almost like the box is losing power for a second or so, enough to make it restart.. But I'm fairly sure that is not it.

My setup is:
ABit NF7-S Motherboard
Radeon 9500
256mb of Corsair RAM
AMD Athlon 2700+
Direct X 9
Windows XP Pro
No USB devices plugged in.

Thanks for any help.
 
Sounds like either a power supply problem, or possibly the RAM giving some nice errors.

Give memtest a try and let it check the RAM all the way through, depending on those results, what kind of power supply do you have? Did you skimp? -- be honest :D
 
Hehe, I didnt.. Im fairly sure its a 550 Enermax or something, but my memory is not the best :)

I guess I could try swapping over PSU's, I have a spare.. but thats lots of wires :)

Ill give memtest a go first, thanks.
 
Well I ran mem test to 760%, no errors..
Guess Ill try PSU now.

Btw, it hasn't happened yet.. It seems ot happen more frequently with certain programs.
Counter-Strike for instance it rarely happens with.
Ultima Online it is quite frequent.

.. Which makes no sense to me, why a 7 year old game would appear to stress the system more.
 
Until you try that (nice effort btw) -- are you planning on upgrading your RAM? 512 is pretty beneficial for any use, and if you game it's a "must". Corsair is good, Enermax is good. . . I would say voltage/PSU error 1st place, RAM 2nd place, HD 3rd place. . . after those it will take some deeper digging.

Take out the RAM and reseat it, too!


Edit: Actually is it 2x128 or 1x256 -- if its 2x128, you may want to try putting it into slots 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 rather than 1 and 2.
 
I used to have 1gb of RAM in this machine, but had various problems in the past that I *assumed* were the ram, taking it does seem to of sorted it out.. but ill run a MemTest on it after I swap PSU.. Which Im about to do now.

I remember last time I swapped a psu, I knocked the switch on the back by mistake.. by by processor :eek: .. Hopefully I wont this time :D
 
I had the same problem you had for quite a while. Everything worked fine, i had a good PS, ram is good too. All of a sudden, it would just randomly restart. Just out of curiosity, i checked the temp. on my bios. Turns out my CPU was running at ~70 degrees CELCIUS, and my mobo's temperature failsafe system was restarting the system on me. I installed a new heatsink, which now runs at ~50, ~60 when im pushin it. I haven't had a single random restart since.
 
SnewchToTheNewch said:
I had the same problem you had for quite a while. Everything worked fine, i had a good PS, ram is good too. All of a sudden, it would just randomly restart. Just out of curiosity, i checked the temp. on my bios. Turns out my CPU was running at ~70 degrees CELCIUS, and my mobo's temperature failsafe system was restarting the system on me. I installed a new heatsink, which now runs at ~50, ~60 when im pushin it. I haven't had a single random restart since.
Click to expand...

In that scenario most motherboards should give an emergency beep (if the spkr is hooked up). I don't think that his problem is heat, just on the description of the HD noise upon reboot. . . but it is otherwise a likely culprit. Let us know how that PSU is working!
 
Chaning PSU did nothing.. I will read up on that link though and check the temperature etc.

I have changed no BIOS settings though, and this is a new problem.. while I have been running this setup for <1 year, never had it before this week.
 
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