Random Restarts

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 4:44 pm

Hello guys,

Well, things have been going pretty well over here. Computer is running fine, and I'm looking seriously at getting a second 17â€? LCD monitor.

The one problem I have (well, there are more, but none so serious) is that once in a long while my screen goes black and the computer restarts. I get to error messages before or after, and the system seems to be stable otherwise. I am behind a surge protector, but other computers around my house stay on while mine restarts, so I donâ€™t think it is a power fluctuation problem.

My restart button doesnâ€™t work either. It either just clicks off the computer or gives it the â€œsleeping beautyâ€? curse (where all the lights are on inside but nothing works). I donâ€™t know if this has anything to do with it.

I have checked all the connections and they all seem to be good. Only thing that isnâ€™t locked in is the power to my mobo, which is in all the way but the lock thing on it just doesnâ€™t click for some reason.

Voltages are fairly constant and temps are fairly low. CPU is at 44 now. Inside air temp is 28.

It doesnâ€™t crash when I do anything either. I'm not crunching the HDD or frying the CPU. Graphics was almost none last time. I was just typing and listening to music (lossless wma files). The music did the repeat thing (like when you uninstall an older program. Just repeats the last 0.1 second of audio about 5 times).

Thanks for your help.

P.S. my computer randomly boots up too. I think it is the wake on lan thing, but I have disabled it everywhere I can find it. Its a pretty rare occurance, but very werid. Shmithers thinks it is haunted.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:00 pm

double check the power, reset, hdd activity, etc pins on the motherboard...in case one of them is on backwards.

FP has a great write-up about IRQ and PCI conflicts...search for IRQ sharing on the forums here and you should find it. you may have a conflict with one of your PCI cards going on that causes the reboots.

general hardware issues...it would most likely be a power supply problem, if anything hardware related.

.02

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 5:38 pm

What do you mean by "pins"? Jumpers? Could putting a switch on backwards make something go wrong? That doesnt make much sense to me, because a switch is just connecting the two pins together, and I can't see how the direction of thw switch could make a difference.

I unpluged the reset button, because it had been faulty.

My USB PCI card never wroked well, and made the comuter screw up the music very much the same way.

I found a post that told me to turn off the automatic reboot when a ctitical error occures. I think that might be it. Person was having very similar problem. http://www.pcabusers.net/forums/showthr ... RQ+sharing

But I knkow that mine is for a different reason, lol.

I only have one PCI card, and that is the USB one. I tried to contact their tech support, but they never responded to me. They might be on spring break though...

I will try the turn off the auto reboot and try to reinstall the PCI card. Could there be a confliction if I only have one PCI card though?

dadx2mj · Post by **dadx2mj** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 6:52 pm

Power supply or bad RAM are first two things that come to my mind with random restarts.

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 6:55 pm

This is a new comp, and I did a ram check recently. All voltages are accurate.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:02 pm

i was talking about the pins on the motherboard that you plug the power and reset switches in to. i've had them cause problems when the +/- are reversed, etc.

what type of power supply are you using? just because it is new doesn't mean it may not be faulty or not have enough power to handle the system you have built.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:04 pm

Unplug the RESET switch. It may be shorting out.

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:06 pm

The reset switch, as in the one connected "to the front of the computer" type thing?

fogus · Post by **fogus** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:12 pm

Im using the
XG VIGOR 500 P4 READY 500W POWER SUPPLY DUAL BLUE LED FANS 80/120MM BLUE SLEEVING UV BLUE CONNECTORS

found at:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... me%20Gamer

Reviewed at:

http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/ ... /index.htm

It got 10 out of 10 ratings on everything. I have alot of faith in it.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 7:56 pm

The reset switch, as in the one connected "to the front of the computer" type thing?

yes. it should be a 2-wire connector.

similar to this: