random shut-downs

[ed jurewicz]

I have been having an intermittant shut-down problem for some time. I have
an Asus a8n-e motherboard w a leadtek 6600gt video card, one wd sata 160g
system drive, one wd ide 90g drive for video storage, an amd64 3000, 1g
crucial memory, 100mg zip drive, plextor 712a sata dvd running winxp sp2. On
rare occasions (sometimes three or four months between instances) the
sytsem will shutdown spontaneously. When this happens, i lose all power to
the system and immediately after shutting down the ups warning light and
alarm kick-in. Upon rebooting the computer functions with no apparant
problems.

This does not appear to be associated with temprature and when I reboot
system temps generally are in the 40 degree range. Also in recent months I
have replaced just about everything on the computer including the power
supply. I went from the antec 400w power supply supplied with the original
case to a truepower 430.

Actually the only components still remaining in the system from the original
a7nx-e build are the ram, the computer case and the ups backup--a conexant.
Also went from win 2000 to xp with the new build. I have checked the ram
with memtest several times with no reported problems. I have attempted to
contact conexant via e-mail on several occasions but have never received any
form of response from them.

Any assistance in diagnosing this problem would be greatly appreciated.

ed

 

[spodosaurus]

I have been having an intermittant shut-down problem for some time. I have
an Asus a8n-e motherboard w a leadtek 6600gt video card, one wd sata 160g
system drive, one wd ide 90g drive for video storage, an amd64 3000, 1g
crucial memory, 100mg zip drive, plextor 712a sata dvd running winxp sp2. On
rare occasions (sometimes three or four months between instances) the
sytsem will shutdown spontaneously. When this happens, i lose all power to
the system and immediately after shutting down the ups warning light and
alarm kick-in. Upon rebooting the computer functions with no apparant
problems.

This does not appear to be associated with temprature and when I reboot
system temps generally are in the 40 degree range. Also in recent months I
have replaced just about everything on the computer including the power
supply. I went from the antec 400w power supply supplied with the original
case to a truepower 430.

Actually the only components still remaining in the system from the original
a7nx-e

What applications do these shut downs normally happen with? Have you
tried running the video card at AGP4x rather than AGP8x?

build are the ram, the computer case and the ups backup--a conexant.
Also went from win 2000 to xp with the new build.

Fresh install or upgrade? Not as important here as it would be if you
went from a 9x version of windows to XP, but something I'm curious about.

I have checked the ram
with memtest several times with no reported problems. I have attempted to
contact conexant via e-mail on several occasions but have never received any
form of response from them.

Any assistance in diagnosing this problem would be greatly appreciated.

What does the event viewer say after one of these reboots?

ed

--
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I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
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marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[JAD]

XP for an OS?
PSU or Power source problems?
Someone comes into the room and turns off the wall switch that controls the
socket in which the power strip is plugged into? ;^)

 

[ed jurewicz]

Thanx for the fast response.

The shutdowns do not seem to be associated with any particular programs.
They actually will happen sitting idled on the xp screen. In the latest
shutdown which happened this morning, it occurred while I was reading email
in outlook. I did get one error message listed which referred to "dmboot".
When clicking on details it stated "failed to start volume2(d". When I
clicked on the MS link there were no other explanations listed. I have
checked this volume for errors just recently and have defragged it.

I have not tried running the video card at AGP4x yet. Just to note this also
occcurred in the earlier a7nx-e system which had an agp ATI 8500 running.
The xp installation was a full install from a disk containing xp w service
pack 2. And I have upgraded all system drivers to the latest.

In addition, when I restart the computer after a shutdown, the machine tends
to run fine with no apparant problems and it can be several months before
the next shutdown. I generally turn the computer on between 6 and 7am and
run it into the evening shutting it down anywhere between 8pm and 1am.

Once again thanx for the response

ed

 

[JAD]

Thanx for the fast response.

The shutdowns do not seem to be associated with any particular programs.
They actually will happen sitting idled on the xp screen. In the latest
shutdown which happened this morning, it occurred while I was reading email
in outlook. I did get one error message listed which referred to "dmboot".
When clicking on details it stated "failed to start volume2(d". When I
clicked on the MS link there were no other explanations listed. I have
checked this volume for errors just recently and have defragged it.

It seems that maybe the HD's maybe having problems. Are these(Is this) HD
newly formatted?
Did you drop a HD from a prior system, with OS installed, into a different
box with different MB and chipset?

I have not tried running the video card at AGP4x yet. Just to note this also
occcurred in the earlier a7nx-e system which had an agp ATI 8500 running.
The xp installation was a full install from a disk containing xp w service
pack 2. And I have upgraded all system drivers to the latest.

Is there anything that was used from the a7nx system that is currently in
the new system?(other than video)

 

[ed jurewicz]

The only items reysed from the old system were the Crucial memory and the WD
video harddrive.I also recyled the Conexant ups. The SATA drive is brand
new and installed when I rebuilt the computer from scratch. I did have some
harddrive problems recently associated with a new install. I tried
installing a new 250G Hitachi for video storage. The first drive never made
it into action as the sata connector split from the drive as soon as I tried
connecting it. I then returned the drive for new one and could not get the
replacement drive formated. Immediately after chucking the Hitachi
altogether, an IDE Maxtor that I was using for video crashed. I replaced it
with the wd 90g IDE drive currently in use. The 90g has been in the box for
the past month. I formatted immediately upon installing.
Thanx for the response

ed

 

[JAD]

The only items reysed from the old system were the Crucial memory and the WD
video harddrive.I also recyled the Conexant ups.

UPS can cause these seemingly Power Anomalies. I would remove it for awhile.
Memory can cause 'reboots', full shut down? not so much, but a check or
reduction in the number of modules may help in isolating problems.

Is the WD video drive on the secondary or slaved on the primary?

The SATA drive is brand new and installed when I rebuilt the computer from
scratch.
I did have some > harddrive problems recently associated with a new install.
I tried

installing a new 250G Hitachi for video storage. The first drive never made
it into action as the sata connector split from the drive as soon as I tried
connecting it. I then returned the drive for new one and could not get the
replacement drive formated. Immediately after chucking the Hitachi
altogether, an IDE Maxtor that I was using for video crashed. I replaced it
with the wd 90g IDE drive currently in use. The 90g has been in the box for
the past month. I formatted immediately upon installing.
Thanx for the response

That's an ugly experience in regards to HD failures in a short time. I would
be monitoring the voltage outputs from the PSU. Were the failures do to
surface deterioration or was it power/circuitboard failure?

 

[chris]

I have been having an intermittant shut-down problem for some time. I have
an Asus a8n-e motherboard w a leadtek 6600gt video card, one wd sata 160g
system drive, one wd ide 90g drive for video storage, an amd64 3000, 1g
crucial memory, 100mg zip drive, plextor 712a sata dvd running winxp sp2. On
rare occasions (sometimes three or four months between instances) the
sytsem will shutdown spontaneously. When this happens, i lose all power to
the system and immediately after shutting down the ups warning light and
alarm kick-in. Upon rebooting the computer functions with no apparant
problems.

This does not appear to be associated with temprature and when I reboot
system temps generally are in the 40 degree range. Also in recent months I
have replaced just about everything on the computer including the power
supply. I went from the antec 400w power supply supplied with the original
case to a truepower 430.

Actually the only components still remaining in the system from the original
a7nx-e build are the ram, the computer case and the ups backup--a conexant.
Also went from win 2000 to xp with the new build. I have checked the ram
with memtest several times with no reported problems. I have attempted to
contact conexant via e-mail on several occasions but have never received any
form of response from them.

Any assistance in diagnosing this problem would be greatly appreciated.

ed

If the board has the marvel gigabyte ethernet and you installed the
updated driver from windows update,you'll need to roll back the driver
or install the original from your cd that came with the board.This
issue is being experienced by lot's of Asus owners.

 

[ed jurewicz]

The manual lists lan specifications a "NVIDIA Nforce 4 built-in Gigabit MAC
with external Marvell PHY supports". I am not using the NVIDEA firewall and
though I am sure I have upgraded the lan driver after the original build, I
have since disabled it. Should I go ahead and roll lback the driver anyway?
Is there a known stable driver that I should use? Furthermore the shutdowns
began while my system was still built around the original a7nx-e board.

To note once again these shutdowns have occurred over a period of almost a
year but they are infrequent and seldom does more than one shutdown occur
within a period of several days. More oftenthan not I will experience a
shutdown followed by several months of flawless operation.

Thanx for the help.

 

[ed jurewicz]

That's an ugly experience in regards to HD failures in a short time. I
would

be monitoring the voltage outputs from the PSU. Were the failures do to

surface deterioration or was it power/circuitboard failure?

\It certainly was frustrating. Actually the first Hitachi never made it into
the machine. The sata connector fell off the drive as soon as I hooked it up
to the drive cable. The second one got into the machine but never formatted.
I used the instruction in the Hitachi manual with no success then I tried
formatting in XP first as a sytem drive for a clean install. Then as an
additional storage drive. Whenever I tried to format, the drive would
freeze-up and not complete formating or (in the case of the Hitachi
instructions) it would indicate a completed format but not record data
afterwards. I finally returned the drive to Compusa and attempted to rebuild
the original configuration with Maxtor IDE drive as video storage and the WD
SATA as system. After doing a clean install of XP on the wd drive, the
system began freezing up and take a long time to boot-up or shut down. I
junked the Maxtor after testing and discovered errors. At the time I simply
attributed it to use or the result of the freezes and shutdowns incurred
during the attempts to format the Hitachi. I replaced it with the WD IDE and
it has been working without prolems for about a month.

What should I be looking for re the psu and where should I monitor it? And
what values am I looking for. Beyond uninstalling and installing, I have
little familiarity with psus.

I am beginninng to think that the problem might be the ups and will soon
take it out of the loop and see what that does. The problem, though, is that
as I have already stated these shutdowns are very infrequent and seldom do
they occur within a few days of each other. More often than not several
months will pass in between individual shutdowns. And generally after such a
shutdown, I power back up and the machine runs without problem. To date it
has created no serious problems but when you are trying over a period of
months to finish up a 350 page disseration with extensive use of graphs and
tables it can be annoying.

Once again thank for your assistance



ed

 

[David Maynard]

I have been having an intermittant shut-down problem for some time. I have
an Asus a8n-e motherboard w a leadtek 6600gt video card, one wd sata 160g
system drive, one wd ide 90g drive for video storage, an amd64 3000, 1g
crucial memory, 100mg zip drive, plextor 712a sata dvd running winxp sp2. On
rare occasions (sometimes three or four months between instances) the
sytsem will shutdown spontaneously. When this happens, i lose all power to
the system and immediately after shutting down the ups warning light and
alarm kick-in. Upon rebooting the computer functions with no apparant
problems.

I have this theory that when alarm bells go off in conjunction with a
problem then that's likely a clue.

In this case I'd suspect that the UPS battery(ies) has(have) deteriorated
so that the UPS can no longer power the system when the odd, momentary,
mains power anomaly occurs.

If it's a switched UPS (as most home units are) then the entire output
section, or battery charger section, could be fried and it still work when
mains power is ok because the output is connected to the mains when mains
power is ok.

But the most common situation is bad batteries.

<snip>

 

[ed jurewicz]

It's looking like the ups is the problem. Just a couple of anomalies though.
First, the shutdowns started when the ups was less than a few months old.
Defective from purchase date??? I have attempted to contact conexant but
after four emails to customer service, I have yet to receive a response.
Also, there are occasions when power in the apartment has been shutdown or
someone has turned off the switch to the outlet to which the ups is
connected and computer has continued to function on battery backup until the
switch was turned back on or the computer was shut down.


Thanx once again.

Ed

 

[Jess Fertudei]

I have this theory that when alarm bells go off in conjunction with a
problem then that's likely a clue.

In this case I'd suspect that the UPS battery(ies) has(have) deteriorated
so that the UPS can no longer power the system when the odd, momentary,
mains power anomaly occurs.

If it's a switched UPS (as most home units are) then the entire output
section, or battery charger section, could be fried and it still work when
mains power is ok because the output is connected to the mains when mains
power is ok.

But the most common situation is bad batteries.

Years ago I had a box that did all sorts of peculiar things which I could
not explain... finally a guy suggested to me that I plug it into a different
circuit in the house and the issues went away. Turned out that the old
Fridge in the kitchen was on the same under-rated circuit for some reason
and when it kicked in it created one heckuva drop.

Fast Forward...

Out here in the sticks I get fluctuations daily in the bad weather months
and weekly in nice ones and 1 or 2 minute outages frequently... so get to
observe the UPS in action regularly.

Several months ago I was getting unexplained PC shutdowns with no power
outage to go along with peculiar error messages that had little or no common
theme except that the whole thing reminded me of the fridge incident only
that I now had shutdowns included. After an outage where the unit failed I
called the support folks for my UPS and told them that I must have a bad
unit. After a suggested test, they insisted only batteries even though I
pointed out that it did not always shut down (and made my case, I thought,
for the AVR being faulty). Being that this was a very expensive unit and
that batteries only cost 16 US bongos each I decided to take that $36 chance
first before a couple hundred if I could not get them to cover it... the new
batteries solved it. I do not know how AVR works, but I suspect that when
there is a drop it relies on the batteries for an instant, not only when
there is an outage???

At any rate... I would try the UPS if I were the original poster as well and
would throw in that one of these times it's going to corrupt a file or
driver or database when it happens and that is going to start popping up all
sorts of other issues as well... it's not a harmless occurrence sometimes.

 

[David Maynard]

It's looking like the ups is the problem. Just a couple of anomalies though.
First, the shutdowns started when the ups was less than a few months old.
Defective from purchase date???

Not as likely, of course, but still possible.

I have attempted to contact conexant but
after four emails to customer service, I have yet to receive a response.
Also, there are occasions when power in the apartment has been shutdown or
someone has turned off the switch to the outlet to which the ups is
connected and computer has continued to function on battery backup until the
switch was turned back on or the computer was shut down.

Well, that would seem to rule out the batteries themselves but it could be
that the UPS doesn't properly handle a transient, or that your PSU is too
sensitive to transients.

Whichever, the UPS seems to notice 'something' and set off the alarm so I
still tend to suspect there's a real power anomaly taking place.

What else is on the same mains circuit as the computer? And I mean all of
it, not just that outlet.

 

[ed jurewicz]

Well, that would seem to rule out the batteries themselves but it could be
that the UPS doesn't properly handle a transient, or that your PSU is too
sensitive to transients.

Whichever, the UPS seems to notice 'something' and set off the alarm so I
still tend to suspect there's a real power anomaly taking place.

What else is on the same mains circuit as the computer? And I mean all of
it, not just that outlet.

The computer is located in my apartment(recent construction) bedroom. Enough
said about quality
(or better yet lack of quality) of construction. It sits on a circuit which
has the associated computer components--speakers, scnner, printer, vcr,
monitor. Other than that the only other things plugged into that circuit are
a clock radio and lamp. That is a best guestimate. The circuits are
admittedly screwy and after first moving in I apparantly tripped a breaker
in my bathroom. Checked breaker box in laundry room with no results. When
the maintenance guy came by he took one look walked into the living room
moved a cabinet and reset a gcfi that fixed the bathroom problems--go
figure.

However, we recently moved and before moving the computer and all assorted
items were plugged into two circuits in a separate offic. In the past this
service provided adequate protection for several systems working
simutaneously. The problems began before the recent move and prior to
rebuilding the computer from scratch. They occurred once or twice after
moving into the new apartment and disappeared for about two months until the
most recent instataneous shut-down.

Regarding the psu and transients, could this be an antec associated problem?
The original power supply was purchased with the case. It was an Antec 400w
supply .Originally I had a soyo dragon installed and experienced no shutdown
issues. The shutdowns first occurred with the a7nx-e system which replaced
ther original dragon mohterboard. The A7nxe-based systems worked with no
problems for at least a year. The shutdowns began to occur somtime after
installing the conexant ups (months/weeks???) and then disappeared for two
or three months. They reappeared shortly before or after moving from the
house into the apartment and once again disappeared after the recent
rebuild and installation of A8n-e based system. At the time of the A8n-e
rebuild, I swapped out the orginal 400w power supply with an Antec Truepower
430w device. Finally after several months with no apparant shutdown issues,
they reappeared just this past week. The system has now been working for
two days after the incident and with no apparant problems.



Thanx for the continued follow-up. It is much appreciated.

ed

 

[David Maynard]

The computer is located in my apartment(recent construction) bedroom. Enough
said about quality
(or better yet lack of quality) of construction. It sits on a circuit which
has the associated computer components--speakers, scnner, printer, vcr,
monitor. Other than that the only other things plugged into that circuit are
a clock radio and lamp. That is a best guestimate. The circuits are
admittedly screwy and after first moving in I apparantly tripped a breaker
in my bathroom. Checked breaker box in laundry room with no results. When
the maintenance guy came by he took one look walked into the living room
moved a cabinet and reset a gcfi that fixed the bathroom problems--go
figure.

However, we recently moved and before moving the computer and all assorted
items were plugged into two circuits in a separate offic. In the past this
service provided adequate protection for several systems working
simutaneously. The problems began before the recent move and prior to
rebuilding the computer from scratch.

Since it occured before the move and rebuild it would seem to move *with*
the equipment.

They occurred once or twice after
moving into the new apartment and disappeared for about two months until the
most recent instataneous shut-down.

Regarding the psu and transients, could this be an antec associated problem?

I doubt it. Antec is usually good quality plus you've had two different
PSUs which reduce the odds of the exact same happening due to it.

The original power supply was purchased with the case. It was an Antec 400w
supply .Originally I had a soyo dragon installed and experienced no shutdown
issues. The shutdowns first occurred with the a7nx-e system which replaced
ther original dragon mohterboard. The A7nxe-based systems worked with no
problems for at least a year. The shutdowns began to occur somtime after
installing the conexant ups (months/weeks???)

Sounds like another clue, to me. Problem started when you added the UPS and
it's the thing beeping.

One thing that raised an eyebrow was your equipment list. Do you have the
motor devices, I.E. scanner, printer, VCR, plugged into the UPS?