PCA Forums

last couple of days i've had my comp randomly reboot on me for no reason

first time i was on icq, 2nd time i was doing something in visual c , and just now when i was surfing

there's no warning at all, so it's quite annoying cuz i almost lost all my work in visual c

what's the common cause of this? I m running win xp pro, and i dont recall this happening in win2k...but this is a fresh install, so...

thanks for any help

System specs? Isn't random rebooting a common problem on AMD systems with a weak power supply

Random reboots can also be caused by a PCI IRQ channel sharing problem (this is NOT the same as an IRQ conflict, there are four PCI IRQ channels labelled A - D and all your PCI and AGP devices must share them). This problem does not affect ISA cards.

This problem is very common with NICs, some PCI sound cards (the SBLive in particular is VERY prone to it) and SCSI controller cards. These cards do NOT like to share a PCI IRQ channel. I explain the problem in detail here with a fix: http://soldcentralfl.com/quakecoop/glfaq5.htm#5_9

If you have an SBLive, try moving it to another free PCI slot.

If you have no free slots available, or none of your free ones work, then make a note of which slot each card is currently installed in right now. Pull ALL your PCI cards except the video card and boot up. Make sure the system is working okay. If the problem consistently happens when playing a game, run that game now and make sure it's okay (most games will run just fine without a sound card installed by-the-way).

If the system seems stable shut down and install ONE CARD AT A TIME. Start with the sound card as that's usually the prime culprit. Make sure that the sound card does NOT share an IRQ with any other device. If it does, or the system acts up, move the card to a different slot until it's resolved.

Repeat this process with all the PCI cards starting with NIC card next if there is one.

Hope this helps.

specs:

AMD TB 750 @ 900
Asus A7V
512 PC-133 (Micron cas 2)
Western Digital 30 Gig 7200 RPM
Enlight 7237 w/ Sparkle 300w PS
SB Live 5.1
ATi Radeon AIW
D-link DFE-538
some cheapie NIC

that's all the important stuff...i think

yeah, good old ACPI for winxp has shoved my vid card, sound card and both NIC's onto IRQ 9...which doesnt look too good

only thing that baffles me is that i didnt have this problem with win2k