Computer reboots on its own! (?)

[shawnews]

Hi guys,
I just bought a new upgrade system and for no particular reason, every
so often the system reboots on its own! I mean it is like losing power and
it just reboots. Windows XP does not recover anything. I cannot relate it
to anything I do. I checked the CPU temperature but seems OK (around 43C)...

The motherboard is a Gigabyte 7VM400M. I have the AMD 2600+ XP
processor and 2 sticks of 512 MB AZTEK RAM. That's it...nothing fancy.
Also I have a CD ROM and a CD RW.

Has anyone had this problem before? I have been building my own systems for
years now and never had such a weird problem. Can you give me any pointers
as to what the problem might be? I bought everything new.

Cheers
Yannis

 

[Anon]

Hi guys,
I just bought a new upgrade system and for no particular reason, every
so often the system reboots on its own! I mean it is like losing power and
it just reboots. Windows XP does not recover anything. I cannot relate it
to anything I do. I checked the CPU temperature but seems OK (around 43C)...

The motherboard is a Gigabyte 7VM400M. I have the AMD 2600+ XP
processor and 2 sticks of 512 MB AZTEK RAM. That's it...nothing fancy.
Also I have a CD ROM and a CD RW.

Has anyone had this problem before? I have been building my own systems for
years now and never had such a weird problem. Can you give me any pointers
as to what the problem might be? I bought everything new.

Cheers
Yannis

Your power supply is way too weak, or defective. Check the AMD web
ite. -Dave

 

[Will Dormann]

Hi guys,
I just bought a new upgrade system and for no particular reason, every
so often the system reboots on its own! I mean it is like losing power and
it just reboots. Windows XP does not recover anything. I cannot relate it
to anything I do. I checked the CPU temperature but seems OK (around 43C)...

Make sure you disable the option to have Windows XP automatically reboot
in case of a STOP error. It helps the troubleshooting process.


-WD

 

[Justice Gustine]

Do you have XP set to re-boot on errors? Before replacing any more
hardware I'd disable that 'feature' and see if the re-boots turn into
BSOD STOP messages.

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

Hi guys,
I just bought a new upgrade system and for no particular reason, every
so often the system reboots on its own! I mean it is like losing power and
it just reboots. Windows XP does not recover anything. I cannot relate it
to anything I do. I checked the CPU temperature but seems OK (around
43C)...

The motherboard is a Gigabyte 7VM400M. I have the AMD 2600+ XP
processor and 2 sticks of 512 MB AZTEK RAM. That's it...nothing fancy.
Also I have a CD ROM and a CD RW.

Has anyone had this problem before? I have been building my own systems
for years now and never had such a weird problem. Can you give me any
pointers as to what the problem might be? I bought everything new.

This is because of errors in Windows. Go to 'My Computer' and right-click on
it and choose 'Properties'. Now, click on the 'Advanced' tab and under
'Startup and Recovery', click the button labled 'Settings'. Under 'System
Failure' in the dialog that comes up, there is a checkbox that says
'Automatically restart'. Uncheck this box and it should go away.

--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
11:57pm up 28 days 8:42, 3 users, load average: 0.11, 0.29, 0.35

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[George A Hamilton]

It could be, as the other posters suggest either the power supply or
problems with Windows. If it is a clean install of Windows, with current
drivers for all hardware etc, then it is probably not a Windows problem.
Do as Ruel Smith suggests, just to make sure. With regards to the power
supply, with hardware like that, you should be using a power supply that
can give at least 350 watts. Less would work, until you try to draw too
much power from it. Things like CD-burning and gameing (AGP card) can
use a lot of power. Good Luck

 

[Yannis]

Guys,
I did all this and the system just rebooted...no blue screen of death or any
messages. Checked the events log and nothing. I have a 350W power supply, no
AGP cards and I have a CD ROM and a CD RW drive only that were not operating
at the time...I tend to believe it has to be a power supply
problem. Is there an easy way to check this out without actually removing
the power supply?

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Yannis

 

[Dave C.]

Guys,
I did all this and the system just rebooted...no blue screen of death or any
messages. Checked the events log and nothing. I have a 350W power supply, no
AGP cards and I have a CD ROM and a CD RW drive only that were not operating
at the time...I tend to believe it has to be a power supply
problem. Is there an easy way to check this out without actually removing
the power supply?

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Yannis

There's no way to reliably check a power supply in the field. Even if you
get a multimeter to check voltages, the voltages could all read normal on a
bad power supply. A voltage dip too slow to register on a multimeter is
enough to lock up a system or cause it to reboot. If in doubt about the
power supply at all, yank that puppy out. I've seen them fail in a rather
spectacular manner (think FIREWORKS) and take connected drives out with
them. -Dave

 

[news.demon.co.uk]

Sounds very much like a hardware fault. Try checking your memory and cpu
under load. There are many little apps for free to help.