PCA Forums

Well I had the Reboot Loop thread, thought I found the dirt was causing a heat problem causing the reboot. I guess not!

Cleaning the system of TONS of dirt it started working fine, no more reboots, for a short while!

System now reboots randomly again. It may not boot at all fully, gets into W2K still loading things and reboots. Or it may fully load W2K and I get online for 5-10 minutes then it reboots.

I ran Spinrite on the drive, no errors found anywhere. Took about 3hours last night to do this 60gig IDE drive. That is what gets me though. The system had just done a reboot an hour earlier and I let it sit for awhile, it had only ran about 20 minutes maybe then rebooted for no apparent reason while checking e-mail. I then booted up Spinrite later and the system ran fine for well over 3hours scanning the drive and sitting idle before and after for a bit.

I shut down lots of stuff today, AVG and other not needed things. All was fine, I got to PCA for about 10 minutes and was sitting Idle during typing a reply and then it just suddenly rebooted.

Once it reboots it seems to get into a loop and I can't get into windows normally. Leave it shut down a few minutes like this time and now I am back online and everything is fine, for now! Could reboot anytime now from the way it's been acting.

I have the firewall on of course, using TINY, but I shut down the AVG stuff and Anti-Spyware stuff etc.. but I also had all that shut down when it rebooted last time.

Why it shuts down sitting Idle I don't know still. I had same things off last time and was fine for while then it rebooted while doing nothing new. Now I am sitting here typing and all is fine so far and it's been on about the same period of time.

What is the good free diagnostic softwares now working in W2k, XP, XP X64, and Vista Home?
Now that I have WIFI available and can download programs I should get all the various ones for testing drives, CPU, Ram, etc...

As for a corrupt registry maybe? But I get into W2K at times like now and everything is working fine till it does that first reboot and that is when it goes into a loop untill I shut it down and let it sit awhile.
But yet I can sit Idle in Bios all night and never reboot once, or I ran Spinrite 3 hours and no reboot.
Sit idle in W2K and I reboot!

Well all been fine for a short time, I'll post this and let the system sit idle and see what happens when I go get a cup of coffee now.

Be back around soon checking rest of forum if the system is working still.

Ok, during coffee break it did reboot! Then it rebooted at the Black screen with white status bar, then it booted into W2k and everythijng seemed loade and done and then it rebooted.

I just took it almost totally a part and cleaned everything again.
Would weak Caps cause this? I certainly hope I don't have a problem there, but the 4 tall caps near the AGP slot are just a little bit rounded on the top I think. Not allot so not really sure, they are almost flat, but not as flat as the other caps I don't think. I couldn't find any leaks.

FP, this is the IWILL XP333 system board. I think you have one or did bcak when I bought this one. Did you ever notice if those 4 tallest caps are totally flat or have any trouble with yours?

Well it's working now, I'm on it now posting this.

I also have took my P/S apart and cleaned it well, I did not see any bad caps in it anywhere.
I have a spare P/S so if the system reboots anymore that may be the next thing I try, swapping the P/S.

It sounds like bad caps or a bad PSU. The tops of all the caps should be totally flat. A cap with a bulge is a bad cap.

My old IWill XP333 is still working I think. Gave it to a friend.

FlyingPenguin wrote:It sounds like bad caps or a bad PSU. The tops of all the caps should be totally flat. A cap with a bulge is a bad cap.

My old IWill XP333 is still working I think. Gave it to a friend.

OK, I kinda thought all flat
Looks like this board may die someday then, maybe it started already?
Those 4 caps are just a slightly rounded, just enough to tell they are not totally flat.

This is the oldest board I have. I have gone through many others in other systems since I built this one. This one has been rock solid though so far (until now anyway).

Well, after todays cleaning, taking it apart and putting it back together, so far it's been online for 2hrs 15 minutes without a reboot. A new record since the reboots first started.

I cleaned the PSU really well today also. It seems to be putting out more air and it's not as warm either. If it goes into reboot mode again I'll put in a spare PSU I have I guess.

Do they look like this:

If they're bulging and you're having random restarts, then I think the day has arrived.

They are just a little rounded, very little so far, and I see no leakage yet.
Probably would not even notice them normally but I was looking for any bad caps close when cleaning the system board.

Well, I guess it's time to look for some caps to have on hand!
If these are soldered only to the bottom of the board then it looks like an easy (ha ha) fix later. All the rest of my caps are totally flat, it's just these 4 and I think they are the same. I paid like $110 for this board way back and it's been my favorite for years, so I guess if I can find the caps for $5 or so I will try to fix it if it dies.

After that last great cleaning the system is up and seems stable. I had it going for 3 hours or more last night, but we got a bad storm and I lost internet so I ended up shutting it down early and going to bed. This morning it's been running 2:20 online without a reboot also. Hopefully it will be ok for awhile now, but who knows?

I have everything loaded and running now also. Firewall, AVG, etc.. and so far so good.

I guess those caps could blow anytime so I better start looking for my other modem and get it installed in another system for a spare just in case.

I plan to travel around a bit this summer by myself, I ain't coming home to fix a computer to get online with!

You can order caps at http://www.badcaps.net

Executioner wrote:You can order caps at http://www.badcaps.net

Thanks just checked them out. Read the instructions and stuff they have posted. Looks like something I can do later. I hope to leave on a trip this weekend.

Well, I was hoping it was going to work awhile. Going to be random I guess till it totally dies. I had it online for hours the other night then most the night last night, all was fine.
I was online for less than an hour today and it rebooted. Did it a couple times, then I left it shut down for a short while, now it's working fine so far again for 20 minutes now.

I think I'll look at my other old boards too and maybe order caps for a couple at same time. Looks like I only have the 4 large going bad on this one so far. I think my older Biostar boards may have died because of caps so I'll take a look at those too.