Random reboots
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yeah, like a reset... just boom and you see the bios splash screen again Roswell
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CAMy guess would be a hardware problem. Cracked motherboard most likely (you won't see a crack per se, it's be a hairline fracture somewhere). Second guess would be dodgy RAM. You could go into the BIOS just after it randomly reboots, and see what the CPU temperature is. If that's faily normal, then I'd blame the hardware.
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Hmm...never heard of a feature like that, but i'll go ahead and hibernate (again:rolleyes:), then go into BIOS to see if there's anything that looks strange...i'll be back in about three minutes Roswell
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CAIt's under My Computer / Properties / Advanced / Startup and Recovery / Settings / System Error / reboot automatically (or something like that)
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist -
I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
Can't get into BIOS...i'm on a sATA drive and i need to have an IDE drive in there for BIOS to perform a longer boot sequence that i'd let me into the BIOS settings screen, rather than just ignoring me and going into windows... I gotta go now but i will be back in 30 minutes to an hour and try a few tricks Roswell :)
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA -
It's under My Computer / Properties / Advanced / Startup and Recovery / Settings / System Error / reboot automatically (or something like that)
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist -
I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
I wonder if your Mom's client knew it had this problem when he unloaded paid her with it. :suss:
-------------------------------- "All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
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I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
Maybe if it IS an o/s error that causes a reboot, then it's probably because i used my backup copy of the XP disc, which was burned while the PC was lying on its side. If the windows installation program doesn't scan for missing bits or errors, (unlinke that of FreeBSD) then i'm not surprised... Roswell
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA -
I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
Run MEMTEST x86 :) Also, watch your CPU tempature / CPU fan RPMs while working. I once had a problem where after some time the power supply would lose charge and slowly the CPU fan would stop spinning. It eventually got so bad it only lasted 10 seconds a boot. The more I unplugged, the longer it ran, but never forever. New power supply solved everything.
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Run MEMTEST x86 :) Also, watch your CPU tempature / CPU fan RPMs while working. I once had a problem where after some time the power supply would lose charge and slowly the CPU fan would stop spinning. It eventually got so bad it only lasted 10 seconds a boot. The more I unplugged, the longer it ran, but never forever. New power supply solved everything.
Michael Sadlon wrote:
Run MEMTEST x86 Also, watch your CPU tempature / CPU fan RPMs while working.
will do...
Michael Sadlon wrote:
I once had a problem where after some time the power supply would lose charge and slowly the CPU fan would stop spinning. It eventually got so bad it only lasted 10 seconds a boot. The more I unplugged, the longer it ran, but never forever. New power supply solved everything.
Sounds similar but not quite the same...i'll try another PSU as soon as i unpack everything Roswell :)
"Angelinos -- excuse me. There will be civility today."
Antonio VillaRaigosa
City Mayor, Los Angeles, CA -
I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
I have a similar problem. Not quite random, but I get reboots on my machine when I plug my Logitech webcam in to the USB port. Just resets the whole machine just like that. Latest drivers & software for the webcam - unbelievable! And yet on my laptop the webcam works fine. Both windows XP pro with all updates. Obviously a hardware incompatibility (I'd say motherboard). It's absolutely frustrating... it seems like this types of major problems would have been a thing of the past by now!
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
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I have a similar problem. Not quite random, but I get reboots on my machine when I plug my Logitech webcam in to the USB port. Just resets the whole machine just like that. Latest drivers & software for the webcam - unbelievable! And yet on my laptop the webcam works fine. Both windows XP pro with all updates. Obviously a hardware incompatibility (I'd say motherboard). It's absolutely frustrating... it seems like this types of major problems would have been a thing of the past by now!
"For fifty bucks I'd put my face in their soup and blow." - George Costanza
CP article: SmartPager - a Flickr-style pager control with go-to-page popup layer.
The only way to stop it is to tightly control the platform. So long as anyone can write a driver and sell hardware, some of that hardware will always have issues with Windows. And people will continue to blame Microsoft.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ Metal Musings - Rex and my new metal blog "I am working on a project that will convert a FORTRAN code to corresponding C++ code.I am not aware of FORTRAN syntax" ( spotted in the C++/CLI forum )
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I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
There is a well known problems with capacitors going faulty on MoBo's. The fault you describe sounds like this problem. Do a google search for more info. Its basically a problem related to poor electrolytes used in the low ESR caps. These caps are used in the power supply on your mother board. Yell out if you cant find the info and i will track it down for you.
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There is a well known problems with capacitors going faulty on MoBo's. The fault you describe sounds like this problem. Do a google search for more info. Its basically a problem related to poor electrolytes used in the low ESR caps. These caps are used in the power supply on your mother board. Yell out if you cant find the info and i will track it down for you.
From what I remember, some company stole the recipe for the 11 secret herbs & spices another company used to make low ESR caps, but managed to mess it up, and sold many thousands of counterfeit, dodgy caps, mostly to motherboard makers. You can usually tell by looking at all the caps on the motherboard and seeing if any are bulging or leaking brown scabby stuff... I had a dozen or so PC's die because of leaking caps, but that was back in the PIII days, I thought it had all been fixed by now...
I have no blog...
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From what I remember, some company stole the recipe for the 11 secret herbs & spices another company used to make low ESR caps, but managed to mess it up, and sold many thousands of counterfeit, dodgy caps, mostly to motherboard makers. You can usually tell by looking at all the caps on the motherboard and seeing if any are bulging or leaking brown scabby stuff... I had a dozen or so PC's die because of leaking caps, but that was back in the PIII days, I thought it had all been fixed by now...
I have no blog...
Liam O`Hagan wrote:
From what I remember, some company stole the recipe for the 11 secret herbs & spices another company used to make low ESR caps, but managed to mess it up, and sold many thousands of counterfeit, dodgy caps, mostly to motherboard makers. You can usually tell by looking at all the caps on the motherboard and seeing if any are bulging or leaking brown scabby stuff...
Thats the one :)
Liam O`Hagan wrote:
I had a dozen or so PC's die because of leaking caps, but that was back in the PIII days, I thought it had all been fixed by now...
I have read stories that this still occurs, but dont quote me on that.
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I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
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The only way to stop it is to tightly control the platform. So long as anyone can write a driver and sell hardware, some of that hardware will always have issues with Windows. And people will continue to blame Microsoft.
Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ Metal Musings - Rex and my new metal blog "I am working on a project that will convert a FORTRAN code to corresponding C++ code.I am not aware of FORTRAN syntax" ( spotted in the C++/CLI forum )
Yup, coming from a driver background I agree completely with what you're saying. It's not that we did a shoddy job of testing our stuff or anything, but it's REALLY impossible to test for everything under the sun ! I've always felt guilty that MS got bad press for something they were not really responsible for. But I wonder, if the PC platform had been tightly controlled (like the Mac), would it be as dominant ?
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Run MEMTEST x86 :) Also, watch your CPU tempature / CPU fan RPMs while working. I once had a problem where after some time the power supply would lose charge and slowly the CPU fan would stop spinning. It eventually got so bad it only lasted 10 seconds a boot. The more I unplugged, the longer it ran, but never forever. New power supply solved everything.
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From what I remember, some company stole the recipe for the 11 secret herbs & spices another company used to make low ESR caps, but managed to mess it up, and sold many thousands of counterfeit, dodgy caps, mostly to motherboard makers. You can usually tell by looking at all the caps on the motherboard and seeing if any are bulging or leaking brown scabby stuff... I had a dozen or so PC's die because of leaking caps, but that was back in the PIII days, I thought it had all been fixed by now...
I have no blog...
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I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
I have a PC that has always had a random reboot problem, i.e. a BSOD. I have never found the problem, unlike yours it can run for months with no problem, then I get several a day. It is a dual boot machine NT and XP and it fails in both Operating Systems. It does seem that certain programs trigger it, e.g. Firefox. It has even flumoxed one of my hardware friends! I would suggest you send it back, i.e. a broken PC is not a valid payment.
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." - Ellen Goodman
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I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
Try this: 1) Removing the cpu HSF 2) Cleaning the existing thermal compound off both the cpu and the heat sink 3) Re-apply some thermal compound to the heatink - you only need a very thin layer 4) Re-install the HSF. Some other notes: A) The cpu fan should NOT slow down during cpu-intensive tasks. If anything, it should speed up. B) DO NO attach the fan to a drive connector. Most motherboards will shut off if they don't detect a fan on fan header 1. C) You may want to invest in a better HSF unit. I would recommend the Thermalright Ultra 120 if your case is big enough to support it.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I know this is not a tech support forum and i'm not treating it as such, but since you guys always try to keep up with the latest and the greatest in terms of hardware, i'm sure someone would have experienced at least a few of the problems i have to deal with right now. My Mom was given a relatively new machine as a partial payment by a client of hers (a creative way to get rid of a machine they no longer needed, and my Mom was okay with it), though not really related to the work we do together, but in the end, since my Mom prefers only laptops for her work and saw no use for this thing, we decided that this machine will go towards updating my work setup. Looked fine at first, 3.00Ghz P4, 1GB RAM...quite an upgrade from the the 1.2(?)Ghz, 256Mb RAM laptop i've been using for the last two years. There wasn't really a need for anything faster, in fact i miss having two monitors at once (i'll have to wait another month or two, unless i try to fix one that's been having static problems), but when it comes to graphics work, i do feel the difference :). But when i finally made the switch to this machine after re-/installing all my work-related stuff i noticed the random reboots. At first they happened while i was taking a break, so i assumed it was Windows Update rebooting without my permission, so i went and turned that off. It happened twice again when i was in the middle of work, so i went and checked what could be wrong. Assuming that it was a short, i went and took it apart completely, finding three loose screws under the motherboard. I assumed i could now relax, but soon found out this didn't cure the problem. At first i thought it may be a problem with the PSU not grounding properly and the static building up until it discharged after approx. 3.5 hours of run time, as it always happened. But throughout the whole time i've had this machine, it froze twice without rebooting, so it must not be anything electrical. I'm now starting to think they gave this machine away for that same reason, it being an exceptionally unstable setup. One thing i did notice though, is when i do something that's at least mildly CPU-intensive, the CPU fan slows down, which makes me think the CPU draws a lot of current and leaves too little for the fan, thus causing a heat problem. It matches what another guy i talked to on Saturdays said, though he said that newer machines have thermometers that shut off the system at a certain temperature. So assuming that's the problem, do i need to get a bigger hunk of aluminum? Or a better fan
the slowing CPUfan would IMO indicate a power supply problem. eg the PSU isn't able to supply the needed wattage and the voltage is beginning to sag. Once it gets to a certain point the CPU is undervolted to the point it becomes unstable and the box falls flat on its face.
-- You have to explain to them [VB coders] what you mean by "typed". their first response is likely to be something like, "Of course my code is typed. Do you think i magically project it onto the screen with the power of my mind?" --- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
