Computer rebooting while burning or reading a CD

[CFran]

Here is my long time problem : on my homemade computer, i've firstly
had problems while burning CD's : while burning a CD, my computer would
suddenly reboot, without a blue screen or anything written in the event
log.. more recently, I've had a problem even worse, which makes my
computer reboot when it reads a CD as soon as it's in the BIOS and
printing "Boot from CD :".

I made sure throughout the time that this problem was OS-independent,
CPU-independent, motherboard-independent, RAM-indepenent, and as for
the burning problem alone, power supply-independant and cd
burner-independant. it seems to happen more often when reading or
burning speed is high

someone told me that it might be due to some overheating problem, but
that's not telling me how i could fix it. has anyone experienced the
same problems, or would anyone know how to fix it? thanks in advance

 

[Tekmanx]

I've done a bit of overclocking in my time and it seems like you're
problems may be due to a unstable setup. It seems you're rebooting
during stressful times. Firstly, can you post your hardware specs?
Motherboard model, Memory speed, CPU FSB speed... and anything extra
that you think I might need to know.

How to solve this?
Well I can point you in the right direction to find out. Download
Prime95:
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

With this app. you can run a stress test to see how well you system
performs under stress, sometimes the stress test fails with an error
stating where it failed.. sometimes the system reboots. If your system
runs fine with this with no failure.. I doubt there's anything that can
cause your pc to crash under stress,unless it's the code itself of
course. I use this when I'm overclocking...making a tweak, then stress
testing for about 30-45mins until I get no reboot/error log.

Is this an AMD processor? Don't get me wrong, AMD is all I've bought
since the gigahertz race started. Thing is with AMD processors.. just
about all in my experience, they aren't clocked properly by default and
you have to go to the BIOS and up the FBS/Multiplier to get the proper
speeds. Running at the default speed.. being not the proper speed could
give you an unstable performance. Believe it or not.. you may even need
to downclock just a tad (Unnoticeable performance difference) to get
the stable pc you need.

Are you using the 80pin cable or 40pin IDE cable?
Is the CD burner on it's own channel or does it slave with another
device on the same channel?

Next I would download this memory diagnostic util. from microsoft. It's
free!
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/mtinst.exe

Burn it to a cd and boot with it, let it run it's six tests at least
three times...never hurts to double check.

Tekmanx

 

[CFran]

I've done a bit of overclocking in my time and it seems like you're
problems may be due to a unstable setup. It seems you're rebooting
during stressful times. Firstly, can you post your hardware specs?
Motherboard model, Memory speed, CPU FSB speed... and anything extra
that you think I might need to know.

Ok, as i said, it doesnt have to do with motherboard, memory speed,
CPU. how do i know? well, i have had the same problem with a MSI and an
ASUS, the same problem with a Athlon XP 1600+ (no matter if it was at
1.6 GHz or downclocked at 1Ghz (10x100MHz), with an Sempron 2400 @ 2
GHz, and as for RAM, i tried with only a 256 MB PC2700 and only a 512
MB PC3200 and the two together. thats why im sayin it doesnt have to do
with all that

How to solve this?
Well I can point you in the right direction to find out. Download
Prime95:
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

With this app. you can run a stress test to see how well you system
performs under stress, sometimes the stress test fails with an error
stating where it failed.. sometimes the system reboots. If your system
runs fine with this with no failure.. I doubt there's anything that can
cause your pc to crash under stress,unless it's the code itself of
course. I use this when I'm overclocking...making a tweak, then stress
testing for about 30-45mins until I get no reboot/error log.

ok, i'll try this, but if it's to find out that it crashes when makin
the CD player spin, it wont be much usefull.

Is this an AMD processor? Don't get me wrong, AMD is all I've bought
since the gigahertz race started. Thing is with AMD processors.. just
about all in my experience, they aren't clocked properly by default and
you have to go to the BIOS and up the FBS/Multiplier to get the proper
speeds. Running at the default speed.. being not the proper speed could
give you an unstable performance. Believe it or not.. you may even need
to downclock just a tad (Unnoticeable performance difference) to get
the stable pc you need.

Well, i spent most of my time with a Athlon XP 1600+ @ 1GHz...

Are you using the 80pin cable or 40pin IDE cable?

80pin cable

Is the CD burner on it's own channel or does it slave with another
device on the same channel?

on it's own, but i've also tried putting it together with the HD and
still had the same problem

Next I would download this memory diagnostic util. from microsoft. It's
free!
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/mtinst.exe

Burn it to a cd and boot with it, let it run it's six tests at least
three times...never hurts to double check.

no need. firstly, that kinda test takes hours, and then, since i tried
my two RAMs alone, I'm sure it's not a RAM problem.

 

[Tekmanx]

That test actually takes 15mins tops. The stress tester will do just
that.. stress your system out. If the problem "only" occurs when you
use that drive and not under any other stressful condition, perhaps
you should return that drive/get a new one. Check the connections? Put
the drive to master and not Cable select?

If you're 100% sure it's not any of your hardware...and from what it
looks, object to all my suggestions, I don't think anyone can help.

Tekmanx

 

[CFran]

That test actually takes 15mins tops. The stress tester will do just
that.. stress your system out. If the problem "only" occurs when you
use that drive and not under any other stressful condition, perhaps
you should return that drive/get a new one. Check the connections? Put
the drive to master and not Cable select?

damn, i'm not even sure that it's 80-wire cables. from what i counted,
it seems to be 40 indeed. i thought the IDE cables that came with
motherboards were all 80-wire. indeed i may be using a 40-wire cable
with my hard drive... however, i hadnt changed jumpers on my CD player
for a long time, and i just looked at it, and i cant find a way to know
what configuration it is. i mean, there's a jumper vertically set on
the 3rd row, but idk what it means...

If you're 100% sure it's not any of your hardware...and from what it
looks, object to all my suggestions, I don't think anyone can help.

Tekmanx

well, seems like it has to do with a heat problem, as a guy who had the
same problem as me told me. i dont know. i'm considering changing my
CD-burner, but when i think about it, i bought it because i couldnt
burn a CD without my computer to reboot before (in that time i didnt
have a reading-problem tho). i guess i should try to connect another
cd-rom player to my computer to see if i get the same problems. but
even if that works, it still wont explain how i got this problem on two
different CD burners, with two differnt CPU's, with two different RAMs,
with two different mother boards, with two different power supplies....

 

[Tekmanx]

Damn.. you changed just about everything. Well actually you didn't try
a different CD-ROM drive yet. If all that you're saying is so, hope
you're not missing out anything..then It's your CD-ROM drive. Only
could be, that's logic.

Look around the area where the jumper is very good... as a last resort
send me the model number and I'll see if I can help.

About your overheating...when you run the prime95 test it will stress
your pc out to the max. It will get as hot as it could possibly get.
Search speedfan and download it, I'd say once you're below 70°F with
an AMD processor, you're cool although I would prefer being below
55°F...65° max.

Tekmanx

 

[CFran]

Damn.. you changed just about everything. Well actually you didn't try
a different CD-ROM drive yet. If all that you're saying is so, hope
you're not missing out anything..then It's your CD-ROM drive. Only
could be, that's logic.

Yeah I like to change my hardware a lot, after all, when you make your
computer yourself, you rather change something than buy a new computer.
well i'ma try changing of CD-ROM drive, but i dont see why my problem
would disappear, since my problems with my Samsung as the same as with
my former Plextor (in worse indeed). there is on thing written on
CD-ROM drive for the jumper and it's this :

C S M
S L A

and my jumper is on M and A. i guess it means Master

Look around the area where the jumper is very good... as a last resort
send me the model number and I'll see if I can help.

About your overheating...when you run the prime95 test it will stress
your pc out to the max. It will get as hot as it could possibly get.
Search speedfan and download it, I'd say once you're below 70°F with
an AMD processor, you're cool although I would prefer being below
55°F...65° max.

Tekmanx

wow, wait, how can you have a 55 F CPU?? 55 F it's 12°C. you put ur
CPU in a fridge or you meant C instead of F? anyways, my CPU is always
runnin at 100% because i use Folding@Home, and thus my CPU reaches
55°C when it's hott in my room, and right now it is 53°C. so yeah, no
need to do any stress test cuz my CPU is always runnin at 100% due to
that distributed computing thing so there's no problem.

Now, with all the things i changed inside my computer, CPU,
motherboard, RAM, CD-ROM drive, power supply, i really dont see how
that problem could persist (even if before i could read CD's without
any problem). makes me suspect my power supply and my CD-ROM drive, but
hey, back two years ago, that's exactly what i suspected first, ic
hanged my power supply (later it failed so now im still using the first
one) and the problem was still there and i changed my burner and even a
new problem appeared.

i'm runnin out of theories to explain my problem, but tomorrow ill
exchange ym CD-ROM drives with another computer and see what happens
for each computer... thanks for carring

 

[Tekmanx]

Cool, let me know how it goes. Oh and about the stress test.. I can
guarentee you that @home test wouldn't stress your system half as much
as the program I told you about, Trust me... I've seen systems overheat
and shutdown because of this App. Add about 5°F to your top temp. and
that's what the stress test will do, not to mention that it will use up
ALL of your memory resources, not just CPU like that @home test.

Tekmanx

 

[CFran]

i did the stress test. it's been running for 30 minutes of CPU time.
nothing noticeable. tezmperature aint really increasing... as if it
wasn't enough i'm runnin a defrag at the same time. i guess i can
conclude my system doesnt have a problem with stress