Sporadic Reboots of Win2k SP4

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Cranford
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Chris Cranford

I began getting sporadic reboots of my Win2k SP4 install about mid-July and
they have progressively been getting worse and more periodic. At first I
thought maybe because Windows had Auto-Reboot on Errors enabled that I
wasn't seeing the problem. I disabled that option and restarted the machine
and yet it continues to sporadically reboot.

I have taken the entire machine apart, cleaned all connectors, blown out all
possible dust particles, reseeded the CPU in case it was loose, took out all
PCI cards and put them back in as well as the memory chips.

The hardware we're talking about is:

Motherboard
1 CDRW (1. Prim. Slave)
2 IDE Hard-drives (1 Prim. Master, 1 Sec. Master)
Power Supply
DLink 10/100 Network Card
PCI Communications Card (Modem)

I have started the process of removing 1 hardware device at a time from the
configuration to see if I can prevent the reboots. Thus far I have removed
the modem from the PC since it is a mail server that must remain online as
much as possible. My next choice was to replace the NIC if it continues to
reboot...

I just replaced the power supply in the machine less-than 6 months ago
because the old power supply's fan quit working thus caused the machine to
overheat and auto-powerdown to prevent machine hardware failures, so I am
suspecting it shouldn't be that, but not 100% ruling it out.

Can anyone offer any advice, tips, or suggestions? And if this isn't the
right newsgroup for this post, please direct me to the more appropriate
group.

Oh, and failed to mention, I have also reinstalled the entire OS + SP4 and
still not fixed...
 
Looking back to the install process of Win2k, it rebooted several sporadic
times during the Win2k install process (before modem or nic) were even
configured in the system.

So I doubt thinking back it's the NIC or modem. I suspect either the
memory is going back, the motherboard is getting flaky, or the power supply
is faulty.

Does anyone know, other than swapping out parts (which I dont have spares
to do), how to test or best judge what could be behind these reboots?
 
Conrad -

Thanks for your input. I certainly think that either #1 or #3 are the
culprits unless it's the motherboard itself. I certainly hope not as
memory and power supplies are a little cheaper :-) ...

In your experience, since the reboots also occurred during the initial
install of Win2k (the blue screen with the plain-text writing portion),
wouldn't you think the NIC is probably not causing the issue?

I mean I can certainly opt to replace it; however I think I will look
into replacing the memory first. If the memory replacement doesn't
fix it, then I just have an extra 256mb chip to play with :-) ...

And as for the bulge on the memory stick, didn't notice any where I had
it out cleaning it last night. It looks to be in perfect health.
 
Your probably right about the NIC, but if it's in there during the install
even though it hasn't been configured yet it could still do it. You could
do a clean install with no NIC/modem (barebones) and see what happens, but
that will affect your up time.As far as switching, when I don't have stuff
around (as hard as that is to believe my wife would say) I can often swap
with a friend for a day or two to see if I can isolate the trouble.You can
also get a cheap NIC ($15) and if you're wrong, well you have a spare. RAM
is a bit more $ so I don't usually keep that around unused.
 
That's the one I was talking about Chris..The "Bad Cap" I think I said
transistors, but I knew someone would jump in with the correct info.
 
Colon Terminus said:
I'd wager that you're seeing the infamous "BadCap" problem. Open the case
and carefully inspect the taller capacitors on the board, especially those
around the CPU socket. If you see even the slightest bulge at the top or any
brown goop oozing out of them or on the motherboard next to them, then
that's your problem and there ain't but one fix for it. Replace the
motherboard.
Click to expand...

Actually there's another option:
http://www.motherboardrepair.com/index.php?sec=home

Rick
 
Conrad -

Well, here's the rundown of what I've done thus far:

- Reinstalled Windows 2000 Professional w/SP4.
- Removed PCI Communications Card (Modem)
- Removed 256MB chip and replaced with new 256MB chip.
- Removed DLink and installed LinkSys 10/100 NIC.

Lets see if this fixes the issue. If not, the only other alternatives is to
swap power supplies and then look at a new motherboard if the power supply
doesn't fix the issue.
 
Thanks for the information. I inspected the capacitors on the MB and they
all look fine. If after replacement of all the secondary hardware that I
have done doesn't fix the issue, I'll go to the MB next. In the end, I
just may end up with a new PC (minus the case) [grin].
 
Sounds like you're on the right track, just have to find the culprit. It's
hardware IMHO.
 
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