Random Reboots

[Chris Stolworthy]

Ok guys got a bit of a puzzle on this one, firsst my hardware:
Asus a7n8x Mobo
Athlon 2500+ (Barton)
512 Running Dual channel Pc2700 Ram
FSB set to 333
80 Gig Hdd
Antec true power 350
1 Mitsumi Cd-rom
Geforce 4 Mx440 (8x) Video

Anyway I am starting to have random reboots every now and again. But those
are few and far between, mostly what I am seeing are MAJOR slow downs in
windows. I mean that it acts as if it is processing heavily, but the CPU
utilization is shown at like 3%-5%. Ran Memtest86 for 5 hours -75 Errors.
Ran manufacturers HDD diagnostic, it came back fine. So I am guessing
either PSU CPU or Mobo. I don't really think it is the PSU as I am not
geting THAT many reboots. maybe 1 -2 a day. I checked operating temps of
the CPU and mobo and both are fine. One thing tho, I had been swapping
heatsinks and ran my sys for a while, pulled the heatsink off and there was
no thermal grease! Doh! So I applied some and re affixed the heatsink. Not
sure if it could have damaged anything. Any input would be greatly
appreciated.

-Chris

 

[Alex]

Are you running anything like MBM to monitor temps? Have you tried running
adaware / an AV package - a lot of PC's I look at that are running slowly
just have either loads of spyware, viruses, or both.

 

[CBFalconer]

Ok guys got a bit of a puzzle on this one, firsst my hardware:
Asus a7n8x Mobo
Athlon 2500+ (Barton)
512 Running Dual channel Pc2700 Ram
FSB set to 333
80 Gig Hdd
Antec true power 350
1 Mitsumi Cd-rom
Geforce 4 Mx440 (8x) Video

Anyway I am starting to have random reboots every now and again. But those
are few and far between, mostly what I am seeing are MAJOR slow downs in
windows. I mean that it acts as if it is processing heavily, but the CPU
utilization is shown at like 3%-5%. Ran Memtest86 for 5 hours -75 Errors.
Ran manufacturers HDD diagnostic, it came back fine. So I am guessing
either PSU CPU or Mobo. I don't really think it is the PSU as I am not
geting THAT many reboots. maybe 1 -2 a day. I checked operating temps of
the CPU and mobo and both are fine. One thing tho, I had been swapping
heatsinks and ran my sys for a while, pulled the heatsink off and there was
no thermal grease! Doh! So I applied some and re affixed the heatsink. Not
sure if it could have damaged anything. Any input would be greatly
appreciated.

You are showing memory errors - what point to looking further? It
is possible you have bad socket connections. You really should
have ECC memory. EVERYTHING on your HD is suspect with those
memory errors.

 

[kony]

Ok guys got a bit of a puzzle on this one, firsst my hardware:
Asus a7n8x Mobo
Athlon 2500+ (Barton)
512 Running Dual channel Pc2700 Ram
FSB set to 333
80 Gig Hdd
Antec true power 350
1 Mitsumi Cd-rom
Geforce 4 Mx440 (8x) Video

Anyway I am starting to have random reboots every now and again. But those
are few and far between, mostly what I am seeing are MAJOR slow downs in
windows. I mean that it acts as if it is processing heavily, but the CPU
utilization is shown at like 3%-5%. Ran Memtest86 for 5 hours -75 Errors.
Ran manufacturers HDD diagnostic, it came back fine. So I am guessing
either PSU CPU or Mobo. I don't really think it is the PSU as I am not
geting THAT many reboots. maybe 1 -2 a day. I checked operating temps of
the CPU and mobo and both are fine. One thing tho, I had been swapping
heatsinks and ran my sys for a while, pulled the heatsink off and there was
no thermal grease! Doh! So I applied some and re affixed the heatsink. Not
sure if it could have damaged anything. Any input would be greatly
appreciated.

-Chris

Read the above, blinked a couple of times and reread it just to be sure it
wasn't all just a dream...

You have memory errors but you suspect something other than the memory?
First thing to do is set (presumably Windows XP) to not reboot on errors.
Google search will find that info.


If the temp was ok with the dry 'sink, and given that it still runs except
for the occasional reboot, which seems as though it could roughly coincide
with an error rate of 75 in 5 hours seem by memtest86, it doesn't seem
likely the that CPU has suffered any damage.
Then see if system is still rebooting or just producing errors.
As CBFalconer mentioned, all the data on your drive, including the
operating installation itself, is potentially corrupt. If any of it isn't
already backed up, underclock the system and retest with Memtest86 till
there are no errors, THEN backup the data. If you made a previous backup
while system was using current settings that produce the errors, make a
different backup after underclocking it, as the first backup is also
potentially corrupt, even more likely corrupt than the files on HDD
itself.

If you haven't updated the motherboard bios, do so. Current revision is
1007 if I remember correctly, and may help, but also try different memory
timings in the bios, and when testing with memtest, note whether these
errors are always in same locations. The memory could be physically
damaged/defective but it seems as likely that the memory simply isn't
stable in it's current configuration on your motherboard. Toward that
possibility, you might set the memory (bios settings) to 100% of front
side bus rate instead of "auto", and slower (larger numbers) timings like
9, 4, 4, 3 (the order in which they show up in bios screen). At this
point I'm considering normally clocked system again, not underclocked, at
which point you'll need to retest with memtest86... the closer to
stability the system is, yet still instable, the longer you'd need to test
with memtest86 to catch errors. When you feel the memory is again stable
test for at least 24 hours.

After everything seems stable again, you can recheck temps and voltages
but you won't be able to gauge stability in windows due to the great
potential that even the operating system files are currupt. For this
reason the system itself could be fine at some point but running code that
can't help but crash. Only solution is to reinstall operating system,
apps, everything.

 

[Toshi1873]

You are showing memory errors - what point to looking further? It
is possible you have bad socket connections. You really should
have ECC memory. EVERYTHING on your HD is suspect with those
memory errors.

A7N8X motherboard does not support ECC memory.

(In fact, it's rather difficult to find AMD motherboards
that take ECC, although Tyan has a few
server/workstation class boards that support ECC and
AMD.)