Random Reboot

[Martin dibb]

My PC has recently started rebooting itself at random.

I have removed all PCI cards and still the PC reboots by itself
several times a day. Here is my current spec:

Windows XP Pro
Lex BN790E M/Board
Antec 430W PSU (recently ugraded from a 300W PSU which I thought may
have been the cause, but the reboots still occur)
Athlon XP1800
ATI Rage AGP 16MB
Fujitsu 120MB HDD
Maxtor 40MB HDD
I have tried two types of memory 2x256MB 133MHz SDRAM (Crucial memory)
or 1x512MB DDR 333 (Brand new, bought yesterday)

It doesn't seem to matter whether the PC has been off for several
hours or not, which rules out over heating problems (I think). I have
tried Memtest86 and the MS memory tester and neither found any errors
with memory. The PC will even randomly reboot in Safemode, which
must rule out driver issues. I have disabled the Auto reboot in XP
and get a blue screen showing different error messages each time.

I can't understand what is causing it as nothing has changed in the
system for over a year.

Does anyone have any tips they can share as to what I can do next?

Mart

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

My PC has recently started rebooting itself at random.

I have removed all PCI cards and still the PC reboots by itself
several times a day. Here is my current spec:

Windows XP Pro
Lex BN790E M/Board
Antec 430W PSU (recently ugraded from a 300W PSU which I thought may
have been the cause, but the reboots still occur)
Athlon XP1800
ATI Rage AGP 16MB
Fujitsu 120MB HDD
Maxtor 40MB HDD
I have tried two types of memory 2x256MB 133MHz SDRAM (Crucial memory)
or 1x512MB DDR 333 (Brand new, bought yesterday)

It doesn't seem to matter whether the PC has been off for several
hours or not, which rules out over heating problems (I think). I have
tried Memtest86 and the MS memory tester and neither found any errors
with memory. The PC will even randomly reboot in Safemode, which
must rule out driver issues. I have disabled the Auto reboot in XP
and get a blue screen showing different error messages each time.

I can't understand what is causing it as nothing has changed in the
system for over a year.

Does anyone have any tips they can share as to what I can do next?

Check your motherboard capacitors (by eye) for bulging tops and leaking
bottoms. this sort of random behaviour is typical of hardware problems,
and this years favourite is umpteen million dud caps used in cheaper
boards (and some expensive ones too).

If that's the problem, prepare to shell out for a new mobo (how old is
the current one?)

 

[Martin dibb]

Check your motherboard capacitors (by eye) for bulging tops and leaking
bottoms. this sort of random behaviour is typical of hardware problems,
and this years favourite is umpteen million dud caps used in cheaper
boards (and some expensive ones too).

If that's the problem, prepare to shell out for a new mobo (how old is
the current one?)

My mobo is approx. 1 year old. I couldn't see any problems with the
caps and looks clean as new. I do usually leave it turned on 24/7 not
sure if this stresses components more or less? I have heard that an
initial switch on can stress components.

Mart

 

[George Macdonald]

Check your motherboard capacitors (by eye) for bulging tops and leaking
bottoms. this sort of random behaviour is typical of hardware problems,
and this years favourite is umpteen million dud caps used in cheaper
boards (and some expensive ones too).

What? Is this a 2nd round of this symptom? I thought the dud caps were in
mbrds from 1999-2000 or so?

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the
wonderful person George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^[email protected]>
said

What? Is this a 2nd round of this symptom? I thought the dud caps were in
mbrds from 1999-2000 or so?

I wish .. they were still building duds as recently as 18 months ago (I
had one .. like you, until then I thought it was a solved problem), and
someone said that some dud nForce3 (Athlon64) boards were produced too,
I believe.

 

[Martin dibb]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the
wonderful person George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^[email protected]>
said

I've just had a closer look. My caps around the CPU are indeed
bulging and leaking at the top! So it looks like it could be a duff
mobo.

Thanks for the tip, I probably could do with an upgrade anyhow.

Mart

 

[George Macdonald]

I've just had a closer look. My caps around the CPU are indeed
bulging and leaking at the top! So it looks like it could be a duff
mobo.

Thanks for the tip, I probably could do with an upgrade anyhow.

Here's the "scoop":
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/feb03/ncap.html and here's
the solution if interested in repair: http://www.motherboardrepair.com/

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

I've just had a closer look. My caps around the CPU are indeed
bulging and leaking at the top! So it looks like it could be a duff
mobo.

Thanks for the tip, I probably could do with an upgrade anyhow.

You're welcome. I didn't believe it when it happened to me (with a 12
month old Epox 8RDA+ board) either. The manufacturer would probably
repair it for you, but since you'd need to buy a spare to run the
machine in the meantime, and probably pay at least the two way postage,
it's better to bin it and buy something newer (although you'll maybe
then have the 'repair install of the OS' to go through).

I'm back with ASUS .. if you can ignore their inability to manage BIOS
releases sensibly (not that I recommend flashing a new BIOS every two
weeks anyway), they do a good job. 8>.

 

[Tony Hill]

What? Is this a 2nd round of this symptom? I thought the dud caps were in
mbrds from 1999-2000 or so?

I don't know if it was the second round or not, but my MSI nForce
board, circa late 2001/early 2002 definitely suffered from this issue.
Just gave out on me about a month ago with some nasty brown goop
leaking out of bottom of one particularly type of capacitor on the
board. Almost every single one of that particular capacitor had this
gunk pooling around them while every other capacitor looked just fine.

I also know of at least one system from a major PC OEM that suffered
from this issue on boards produced only about a year ago.