Random restart

[Squeller27]

Hi,

My computer reboots randomly the last couple of days. It's as if the reset
button is being pressed, there is no blue screen. I've installed Windows and
Linux on my computer; the problem occurs in both OS.
A friend of mine suggested that my computer is overheated; that could make
sense because the temperature in my room is quite high (> 30 degrees
Celsius). However, I'd expect the computer to turn off (but it restarts
instead) in order to cool down.

Here's some more info:

- Pentium III 667 Mhz
- 400 Mb Ram
- Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem, latest updates have been installed
- Nvidea TNT/TNT2 videocard
- Maxtor 80 Gb harddisk
- Western Digital 15 Gb harddisk
- OS: Windows XP, Linux (Mandrake 8.2)

Any more idea's ?

Thanks in advance,

Eric

 

[Franklin]

Hi,

My computer reboots randomly the last couple of days. It's as if the reset
button is being pressed, there is no blue screen. I've installed Windows and
Linux on my computer; the problem occurs in both OS.
A friend of mine suggested that my computer is overheated; that could make
sense because the temperature in my room is quite high (> 30 degrees
Celsius). However, I'd expect the computer to turn off (but it restarts
instead) in order to cool down.

Not if it's failing. PC's that are smart enough to know they are overheating
will shut off. Dumb PC's with stay on and fail, causing the restart.

Could be a number of reasons though. Bad powersupply or RAM. Loose
connection. Short circuit...

Time to do some investigating!

 

[Firebird81]

Given the influx of cheap power supplies put in a lot of sub-$60 cases these
days, and the sheer amount that seem to fail within 2 years of purchase,
your PS would be the first suspect. Although, the other things mentioned
could also cause problems. You can checkyour RAM with an intensive program
like tufftest. I hav eused many ram checking programs and had bad RAM pass
all of them, but tufftest goes a little further in its diagnostics and found
errors. Check your case fans and th eone in your PS to make sure they are
working, check your CPU fan to make sure it hasn't come dislodged, or quit
working altogether. Although a hot CPU usually mean the PC will be unable to
re-boot successfully for a few minutes, then magically it will be able to
restart, only to die within a few seconds.

Have you recently added any components to your PC that might be overloading
your power supply? HAve you recently plugged anything into a wall outlet
that chares the same circuit as your PC? Had a machine at work that was
restarting all the time. Cause? photocopier plugged into anothe routlet
sharing the same circuit. Do you have a UPS? "dirty" power( that fluctuates)
can cause restarts. A UPS would turn on the backup battery and the software
would record the event. Just a few thigns to consider....

 

[Squeller27]

Thanks for all replies!

Given the influx of cheap power supplies put in a lot of sub-$60 cases these
days, and the sheer amount that seem to fail within 2 years of purchase,
your PS would be the first suspect. Although, the other things mentioned
could also cause problems. You can checkyour RAM with an intensive program
like tufftest. I hav eused many ram checking programs and had bad RAM pass
all of them, but tufftest goes a little further in its diagnostics and found
errors. Check your case fans and th eone in your PS to make sure they are
working, check your CPU fan to make sure it hasn't come dislodged, or quit

All fans (CPU, video card and power supply) are running!

working altogether. Although a hot CPU usually mean the PC will be unable to
re-boot successfully for a few minutes, then magically it will be able to
restart, only to die within a few seconds.

Temperature isn't the problem I guess: system temp is about 35 degrees, CPU
temp. is 33 degrees (Celsius of couse. The max. overheat temperatures are
according to the bios is 50 degrees (CPU) and 50 degrees (system).
This does not really prove to me that an overheated component isn't causing
the problem, 'cause I'm not sure if the temperature of all the components
are measured.

Have you recently added any components to your PC that might be overloading
your power supply? HAve you recently plugged anything into a wall outlet

Well, I just wanna say that there are quite a lot IDE-devices in my PC: 2
harddrives, 1 DVD-ROM, 1 DVD-writer.

that chares the same circuit as your PC? Had a machine at work that was
restarting all the time. Cause? photocopier plugged into anothe routlet
sharing the same circuit. Do you have a UPS? "dirty" power( that

fluctuates)

No, I haven't (according to the power options).

can cause restarts. A UPS would turn on the backup battery and the

software

well, it is something to consider especially when it isn't expensive.

would record the event. Just a few thigns to consider....

I think it is a power failure. I also hear the sound of the switch being
turned off and (immediately) on. I don't hear this sound when I press the
reset button. It's as if the power supply can't take it anymore.
OBTW, the heatwave in my country is over, so the temperature in my room will
drop. The next couple of days will show if it's the high temperature in
my room (30 degrees) that caused the problem.

Cheers,

Erik

 

[Squeller27]

I have had this problem and seen it on these newsgroups a lot... more often
than not it is a fatal error that is causing it... run scandisk, defrag,
ad-aware and antivirus and see if anything comes up. Also WinXP is
configured to simply reboot if a blue screen error occurs, to turn this off
RC My Computer, properties, advanced tab, click startup and recovery
settings, and look at your "system failure" options, there is a checkbox for
automatic restart... turn it off... To correct my restarting problem I did
a scandisk and it corrected it. I got a message "windows has recovered from
a critical error"... good luck
Girgath

The problem was NOT software related because it occured in Linux, running on
the same machine of course, too.
It used the utility tuff test in order to find out which component failed
now and then. It turned out be the harddisk: after running a harddisk test
for a while (read/verify), the computer suddenly rebooted. This problem did
not occur while testing other components such as RAM. I finally concluded
that it had to be short-circuit. I suddenly noticed that the harddisk was
very close to the 'chassis' (correct English?) of the computer and that the
chassis was a bit bent IOW it probably touched some components of the
harddisk every now and then causing a reboot.
Anyway, I moved the harddisk to another place and now it doesn't happen
anymore! ( I've been running my computer for 2 days nows