PC keeps rebooting and rebooting......help please

[Serendipity]

Christmas cheer to one and all
My machine is not entering into the Christmas spirit.
I've installed XP Pro onto a machine that contains a new motherboard,
(Jetway V2MDMP) new ram (500mb DDR 400) new H/D (80g) and a reasonably
new chip (AMD Athlon 2.6). When the installation is complete all is
fine until I run a CPU intensive prog like a game or video editing
software or music software. Then the PC starts rebooting. Sometimes it
reboots at the point when the desktop is about to load other times XP
loads but reboots when pushed by an intensive prog. I have removed
all my PCI and AGP cards, formatted, installed, rebooted using the
onboard graphics and still the same problem. The CPU temp is running
at 48c and the system at 40c. A bit hot but ok.
My feeling is its something to do with the chip but I know nothing
about them. Can a chip still work if it's damaged but only fail when
it's pushed?
Is there a program I can use to test the integrity of the chip?
After every reboot XP reports an error to with making a mini dump
(whatever that is) in my documents\ local directory.
Any ideas or help much appreciated
Thanks

 

[Ken]

Christmas cheer to one and all
My machine is not entering into the Christmas spirit.
I've installed XP Pro onto a machine that contains a new motherboard,
(Jetway V2MDMP) new ram (500mb DDR 400) new H/D (80g) and a reasonably
new chip (AMD Athlon 2.6). When the installation is complete all is
fine until I run a CPU intensive prog like a game or video editing
software or music software. Then the PC starts rebooting. Sometimes it
reboots at the point when the desktop is about to load other times XP
loads but reboots when pushed by an intensive prog. I have removed
all my PCI and AGP cards, formatted, installed, rebooted using the
onboard graphics and still the same problem. The CPU temp is running
at 48c and the system at 40c. A bit hot but ok.
My feeling is its something to do with the chip but I know nothing
about them. Can a chip still work if it's damaged but only fail when
it's pushed?
Is there a program I can use to test the integrity of the chip?
After every reboot XP reports an error to with making a mini dump
(whatever that is) in my documents\ local directory.
Any ideas or help much appreciated
Thanks

Do you have any other memory to try? It is unlikely to be your
microprocessor chip in my opinion, and since you have lessened the load
on the PS, that would seem to decrease the probability of it being your
problem. If you can slow down the FSB for the RAM, that might confirm
the RAM as your problem. Since your problem seems to be when you load a
lot of data in RAM, you could have a location in a higher area of your
installed RAM that is not used until such a program is loaded.

 

[ToolPackinMama]

Christmas cheer to one and all
My machine is not entering into the Christmas spirit.
I've installed XP Pro onto a machine that contains a new motherboard,
(Jetway V2MDMP) new ram (500mb DDR 400) new H/D (80g) and a reasonably
new chip (AMD Athlon 2.6). When the installation is complete all is
fine until I run a CPU intensive prog like a game or video editing
software or music software. Then the PC starts rebooting. Sometimes it
reboots at the point when the desktop is about to load other times XP
loads but reboots when pushed by an intensive prog.

Hmm, perhaps you have a overheating problem.

 

[Dave C.]

Christmas cheer to one and all
My machine is not entering into the Christmas spirit.
I've installed XP Pro onto a machine that contains a new motherboard,
(Jetway V2MDMP) new ram (500mb DDR 400) new H/D (80g) and a reasonably
new chip (AMD Athlon 2.6). When the installation is complete all is
fine until I run a CPU intensive prog like a game or video editing
software or music software. Then the PC starts rebooting. Sometimes it
reboots at the point when the desktop is about to load other times XP
loads but reboots when pushed by an intensive prog. I have removed
all my PCI and AGP cards, formatted, installed, rebooted using the
onboard graphics and still the same problem. The CPU temp is running
at 48c and the system at 40c. A bit hot but ok.
My feeling is its something to do with the chip but I know nothing
about them. Can a chip still work if it's damaged but only fail when
it's pushed?
Is there a program I can use to test the integrity of the chip?
After every reboot XP reports an error to with making a mini dump
(whatever that is) in my documents\ local directory.
Any ideas or help much appreciated
Thanks

Your symptoms point to two totally different problems, but they could be
related. You have classic symptoms of a power supply that is WAY too weak,
but then you also have symptoms of bad RAM. I think (my gut feeling) is
that the (bad RAM) symptom is being caused by a weak power supply. You
didn't recycle the power supply from an older system, did you? -Dave

 

[jonny]

I would check the voltage from the power supply.
My Dell did exactly the same thing last week .The fault was in the
floppy drive .It took all the power from the rest of the system. causing it
to reboot .
Disabling the floppy cured the problem .

 

[Serendipity]

I would check the voltage from the power supply.
My Dell did exactly the same thing last week .The fault was in the
floppy drive .It took all the power from the rest of the system. causing it
to reboot .
Disabling the floppy cured the problem .

Hi.
Firstly thanks for the help.

The RAM is brand new. 1 256 stick of DDR 400. I too thought that was
the problem so I bought the new RAM, no difference. The spec for the
motherboard specifies DDR 333 with the FSB running at 166/33.
The PSU is 400w and I bought it new 6 months ago. Everything seems to
power up ok and I used this PSU in another PC so I'm pretty sure it's
OK. If it was a power supply problem which only shows itself when the
CPU is pushed, is there a method or software I can use to determine
whether this is so?
Sorry if this is a bit gibberish but I've been at the christmas
sherry,
Thanks again.

 

[Phil]

All you need is a voltmeter to measure the PSU outputs both under load and
in its stable state

--




Regards,

Phil Hirst

 

[Dave C.]

All you need is a voltmeter to measure the PSU outputs both under load and
in its stable state

You'd need a multimeter with memory capability. While you can observe
average voltages with a multimeter, the kind of voltage drop that causes
instability in a PC often can not be "seen" on the LCD display, as it
happens too fast to see it. That's why you generally do not use a
multimeter to test a power supply. IF a power supply has a problem that is
easily detected with a multimeter, there will be no NEED to use the
multimeter, as it will be very obvious that the power supply is bad. -Dave

 

[w_tom]

Symptoms suggest defective transistor on motherboard.
Symptom suggests a failing electrolytic capacitor. Symptom
suggests RAM connector is loose. Symptom suggests an
intermittent power on switch. Symptom of a standoff not
properly insulated from PC board traces. You have provided
symptoms that describe at least 200 additional problems.
Follow those 'try this' recommendations and eventually replace
everything inside the computer. Or diagnose smartly like a
car mechanic.

Others have suggested using a multimeter. First verify
power supply subsystem. Not just power supply. It is a
system with power supply as only one component. Having
confirmed power subsystem, then move on the other suspects.

The naive would have you shotgunning long before essential
facts were obtained. Currently so few facts are available
that a repair attempt becomes unjustified wild speculation.
Those who recommend the multimeter are advising this: first
get facts. Fix the problem only after symptoms have
identified the problem. Do not shotgun.

Detailed procedure including numbers for using that
multimeter was posted previously:
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt on 20 Dec 2004 entitled
"Computer freezes" at
http://tinyurl.com/4tkqz

 

[BruceM]

& then to top it off, turn off "reboot on all errors".

 

[Martin G.1.0]

Symptoms suggest internet kook.

Symptoms suggest defective transistor on motherboard.
Symptom suggests a failing electrolytic capacitor. Symptom
suggests RAM connector is loose. Symptom suggests an
intermittent power on switch. Symptom of a standoff not
properly insulated from PC board traces. You have provided
symptoms that describe at least 200 additional problems.
Follow those 'try this' recommendations and eventually replace
everything inside the computer. Or diagnose smartly like a
car mechanic.

Others have suggested using a multimeter. First verify
power supply subsystem. Not just power supply. It is a
system with power supply as only one component. Having
confirmed power subsystem, then move on the other suspects.

The naive would have you shotgunning long before essential
facts were obtained. Currently so few facts are available
that a repair attempt becomes unjustified wild speculation.
Those who recommend the multimeter are advising this: first
get facts. Fix the problem only after symptoms have
identified the problem. Do not shotgun.

Detailed procedure including numbers for using that
multimeter was posted previously:
alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt on 20 Dec 2004 entitled
"Computer freezes" at
http://tinyurl.com/4tkqz

 

[JAD]

Reset Cmos / load defaults..... then set to reboot on all errors
option to NO

 

[Serendipity]

Hi all and thanks for all the help.
The solution
There are 3 jumper settings for the FSB which I was selecting via
software in the BIOS. According to the BIOS readout all was fine.
In desperation I took one last look at the motherboard and noticed the
hardware jumpers for the FSB. One was on the 100 MHz pin and the
other was on 266 MHz pin. TWO jumpers where there should have only
been one. I removed one of the jumpers and all was fine, finally.
Lesson learnt: I will never assume that because a motherboard is new,
still in the wrapper, that it is preset the way the manual says it
is.
Thanks again for the help.
Happy new year.