Spontaneous Reboot

  • Thread starter Thread starter Edward W. Thompson
  • Start date Start date
E

Edward W. Thompson

I have recently carried out some 'upgrades' to my machine and now it
occasionally reboots for no obvious reason. The 'upgrades' include
increasing RAM from 1 to 2MB, changing a HDD from 80GB to 320GB and the
addition of a PCI SATA Card. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro
and the CPU an Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz with WINXP Pro SP2. The original
system using 2 Maxtor 80GB SATA HDD and 1MB RAM performed without fault for
the past 3 years.

The upgrades were phased. The RAM was added first and there was no problems
with about two weeks operation. I then obtained a 320GB SATA Seagate
Barracuda 16MB cache and as only two SATA ports are available on the MB, a
'no name' VIA VT6421 PCI SATA Card was installed. Initially I connected the
new HDD to the 'SATA Card' and that configuration was trouble free for about
2/3 days. I then cloned the OS from a Maxtor HDD to the Seagate HDD and
'swapped' the drives so the Seagate 320GB drive is connected to a one board
SATA port and the 80GB connected to the PCI SATA Card. It was at this point
the 'spontaneous' rebooting occurred. The first time it happened I put it
down to a 'spike' in the electrical supply but it has happened twice since
then and I think the machine is at fault but am at a loss to understand what
the problem might be. These 'reboots' do not seem to be related to a
particular event, for example the most recent occurred when reading an
online newspaper, the previous when running True Image imaging a drive,
neither onerous operations for the machine. The events are separated by up
to 24 hours so 'overheating' does not seem to be a culprit.

Can anyone offer an explanation or where to start troubleshooting?
 
Edward W. Thompson said:
I have recently carried out some 'upgrades' to my machine and now it occasionally
reboots for no obvious reason. The 'upgrades' include increasing RAM from 1 to 2MB,
changing a HDD from 80GB to 320GB and the addition of a PCI SATA Card. The
motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro and the CPU an Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz with
WINXP Pro SP2. The original system using 2 Maxtor 80GB SATA HDD and 1MB RAM
performed without fault for the past 3 years.

The upgrades were phased. The RAM was added first and there was no problems with
about two weeks operation. I then obtained a 320GB SATA Seagate Barracuda 16MB
cache and as only two SATA ports are available on the MB, a 'no name' VIA VT6421
PCI SATA Card was installed. Initially I connected the new HDD to the 'SATA Card'
and that configuration was trouble free for about 2/3 days. I then cloned the OS
from a Maxtor HDD to the Seagate HDD and 'swapped' the drives so the Seagate 320GB
drive is connected to a one board SATA port and the 80GB connected to the PCI SATA
Card. It was at this point the 'spontaneous' rebooting occurred. The first time
it happened I put it down to a 'spike' in the electrical supply but it has happened
twice since then and I think the machine is at fault but am at a loss to understand
what the problem might be. These 'reboots' do not seem to be related to a
particular event, for example the most recent occurred when reading an online
newspaper, the previous when running True Image imaging a drive, neither onerous
operations for the machine. The events are separated by up to 24 hours so
'overheating' does not seem to be a culprit.

Can anyone offer an explanation or where to start troubleshooting?
Click to expand...

Check the Event Viewer:
Click Start > Run, type in: eventvwr.msc and press Enter or click Ok.
Expand the event viewer window.
Click once on either Applications or System in the Left pane.
Double click on an error listed in the Right pane to bring up a details window.
Click the link if present at the end of the description to a page with a "possible
solution".


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
 
Edward said:
I have recently carried out some 'upgrades' to my machine and now it
occasionally reboots for no obvious reason. The 'upgrades' include
increasing RAM from 1 to 2MB, changing a HDD from 80GB to 320GB and the
addition of a PCI SATA Card. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro
and the CPU an Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz with WINXP Pro SP2. The original
system using 2 Maxtor 80GB SATA HDD and 1MB RAM performed without fault for
the past 3 years.

The upgrades were phased. The RAM was added first and there was no problems
with about two weeks operation. I then obtained a 320GB SATA Seagate
Barracuda 16MB cache and as only two SATA ports are available on the MB, a
'no name' VIA VT6421 PCI SATA Card was installed. Initially I connected the
new HDD to the 'SATA Card' and that configuration was trouble free for about
2/3 days. I then cloned the OS from a Maxtor HDD to the Seagate HDD and
'swapped' the drives so the Seagate 320GB drive is connected to a one board
SATA port and the 80GB connected to the PCI SATA Card. It was at this point
the 'spontaneous' rebooting occurred. The first time it happened I put it
down to a 'spike' in the electrical supply but it has happened twice since
then and I think the machine is at fault but am at a loss to understand what
the problem might be. These 'reboots' do not seem to be related to a
particular event, for example the most recent occurred when reading an
online newspaper, the previous when running True Image imaging a drive,
neither onerous operations for the machine. The events are separated by up
to 24 hours so 'overheating' does not seem to be a culprit.

Can anyone offer an explanation or where to start troubleshooting?
Click to expand...
I'd run a memory tester. I'd say that was the most likely cause.

Cheers,

Cliff
 
Edward

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, Advanced,
Start-Up and Recovery, System Failure and uncheck box before
Automatically Restart.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure even after you have
solved the problem as it's better disabled. Check for variants of the
Stop Error message.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
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