The Wonderful Windows Restart...

[PDG]

Any input is highly welcome here. I've done oodles of troubleshooting and my results are below. I'd really like to know if anyone has ever had a problem similar to this one.

The Problem:
My 4 year old computer randomly restarts itself out of the blue. And when I say restart I mean it doesn't even give a blue screen or a freeze. It just goes black, the normal BIOS beep goes off I see the BIOS boot up as normal. Then it boots back into Windows XP. Lately the random restart intervals are getting shorter and shorter allowing me to spend less time in Windows.

Viruses are not a possibility. I've scanned and rescanned with Avast and I never, ever open random attachments. I'm extremely careful and aware of potential viruses.

Steps I've taken:
1. I tried using a different 8mb Video Card instead of my 128mb Fx5200. The problem kept happening.
2. Since I have two 512mb sticks of memory, I tried booting only with one at a time. The problem kept happening with both and MemTest came back error-free as well.
3. My old 30gb Maxtor hardrive comes back as "bad" in S.M.A.R.T. but I recall it doing that about a year ago and then going away. I ran several tests on the hardrive using Maxtor utilities and various 3rd party utilities. All came back ok. I tried putting in a new 80gb Western Digital after cloning the image over but Windows refused to boot. It only made it as far as the Windows recovery screen (choose Safe Mode, etc) and then the restart immediately started again. And yes, I have the active partition and jumpers set correctly. I even tried reinstalling Windows XP onto this new 80gb hardrive but I cannot. I kept getting Stop 0x000000a5, 0x0000008e, and 0x00000050 errors halfway through the install at various points.

My thoughts:
At this point all that's left is the motherboard, processor and maybe the hardrive. Any thoughts or additional tests that you think may be useful?

[Dave]

Since I upgaded to Windows XP mine has switched itself off a couple of times but that was nothing compared to what it had been doing under Windows98. My son couldn't find the root cause of the problem then and we put it down to the age of the computer and the motherboard failing to cope.

If I can drag him in here I'll get him to look this thread over .... don't hold your breath though.

[PDG]

A guru over at www.anandtech.com came to one of the same conclusions that I did. He thinks the motherboard is on it's way out. So I invested in a new Asus $60 motherboard to see if it resolves the issue. Updates to follow...

[Dave]

Jolt says - "Buy a Mac"

(what else)

:D

[Bill E Goat]

A good power supply in your tower is all important nowadays with the new CPUs, motherboards and video cards. Also if your unit has a power supply that is sensitive to voltage fluctuations you might consider investing in a backup power supply , I've run one for 5 years and I'm sure thats aided in the stability of my pc. Not only does it keep my tower and monitors running if the power suddenly gets disconected it keeps the power at a filtered constant even voltage, household voltage though you might never notice it always fluctuates and varies depending on the power company and other variables in your area.

I have been toying with the idea recently of building a new tower as my current box (4 years old) though rock solid and it never ever crashes, it is just getting a little long in tooth. But I just couldn't be bothered gathering together all the parts and hammering it together.

I'm lucky that my brother inlaw has a sweet deal with Dell and purchases large numbers of units off them for his work, and ontop of that gets a bulk discount. So I have sent my specs to him on what I require and sure enough Dell will put together the unit with the newer Intel chipset they have just started shipping. I might be paying a couple of 100 dollars more for the unit but here's the kicker, with the deal I get a 3 year onsite next day repair warranty, never understimate the piece of mind and reliability factor when it comes to your pc. Mass storage and hardrives prices being so cheap I would never consider having a unit without a secondary ghosted backup drive.

As for purchasing an Apple, for me to convert all my programs to Apple versions would be overkill, plus one package I use for work purposes no Apple version is available. When I win the lotto though an Apple is at the head of my list on new toys to get.

[Silky]

I had the same problem with the computer I had before the Sony I just traded in. It started out just rebooting occasionally...once a week or so. Then as time went on it got more and more frequent. No warnings at all. I'd be in the middle of something and suddenly it was rebooting. I took it in to a shop to be checked out and the guy told me it was the motherboard. Since I am very un-technically inclined, and couldn't do the work myself, they wanted to charge me an arm and a leg. So...to make a long story even longer...I gave the computer to my dad to cannibalize and got the Sony Vaio that is now being handed down to my mom. :)

[blix]

I'm with Bill on this one: Power supply.

I know the motherboard is on the way, so to add to your list of to do's when you're rebuilding this sucker:

Blow out the dust! Specifically, target the power supply and really clean that sucker out. That also goes for any heat sinks on the processor, video card, etc. Dust is a great insulator and your power supply or processors could be getting too hot. This may have fried the PSupply, so you may need to replace it too!

General advice: Keep your towers in a place where the exhaust can sufficiently dissipate. If your computer is in a cabinet with the door closed or in the corner wedged between the wall and desk, you may not be getting enough ventilation.

Bottom line: Heat will kill a computer.

Keep us posted, PDG!

-B

[PDG]

You guys are probably right about the power supply. It's a classic symptom. But either way the motherboard is a step up since it offers me SATA, RAID and several USB 2.0 slots. Also, it requires less power than my current power hungry motherboard which may resolve the issue. It's scheduled to arrive Thursday from Newegg. Updates to follow.

[Chris49]

Power supply I'm 99%

I'm in a Tec. class and we just finished a section on power supplies

most times when a P.S. reboot randomly (and soon reboot will start geting more and more frequent.) the PS is about to go out.

good news most of the time this will not damage the mother board what you are supposed to do is stick a power supply tester on that bad boy to make sure you are not geting to much power,
you can also use a volt meter if you know what your looking for.

if it were me I wouldn't bother i would just get a new PS

Good Luck

[PDG]

It's the motherboard guys. Upon receiving the new Asus motherboard, the 30gb was still not bootable, but I was at least able to install a fresh copy of WinXP on a separate 80gb hardrive I have for emergencies. I wasn't able to do that with the old ECS motherboard.

So now I'm repairing the 30gb, burning Windows 2000 to CD and later I'll low-level format it. I'm taking a step back to Windows 2000 because Microsoft will be forcing Service Pack 2 to all computers with auto-update enabled on April 12th I believe. Plus Windows 2000 has less drama associated with it imho.

Details about the force here (http://www.ogadei.com/node/microsoft-forcing-worldwide-sp2-upgrade-on-april-12th/195).

[blix]

eeeewwwww! Windows 2000? Ugly, but yer right, PDG -more stable. Glad you're on your way to getting your machine back up and running!

SP2 is going to be forced? Ouch! I need to get my wife's stuff backed up soon, then!

-B

[Dave]

SP2 - "I'm afraid Dave"

Running XP with auto-update turned on ..... :'shake':

[Silky]

[QUOTE=PDG]It's the motherboard guys. [/QUOTE]

I love being right amongst a bunch of computer gurus. :)

[Newby]

I'm safe, I already have SP2 and dealt with all the software conflicts, luckily I just had to deal with Norton.

[Silky]

SP2 was something I dreaded dealing with before I got my Mac. I avoided updating and lived in fear that if I didn't I'd get some fatal deadly computer disease that would leave my computer limp and lifeless on my desk. I have to say, I'm so relieved I don't have to worry about that anymore.

[Newby]

One day Steve Jobs and Apple are going to slip up and leave another exploit, and when that day comes YOU'LL BE SOOOORRRYYY :lots:

[123456789]

Avast rocks (and it's free.)