Spontaneous reboots in Vista Ultimate

[Daze N. Knights]

I built a new box and installed Vista Ultimate a couple of years ago,
which has begun to occasionally reboot in a spontaneous and random
manner. I don't recall exactly when this began, but the first time it
happened was at least 6 months ago. And it's not often; maybe averaging
once every 3-4 weeks. It has nothing to do with how long the PC has been
on: sometimes I've been on it for hours; but the last time it occurred,
I had only turned the PC on 20 minutes earlier. It has nothing to do
with what application I'm using at the time: browser, email client,
other. And when it crashes, first the monitor screen goes dark with lots
of multi-colored squiggly lines, and then my PC cleanly reboots. Aside
from the unwanted interruption and any newly input data lost, everything
always seems fine thereafter.

Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
does this sound more like a problem with my video card?

 

[+Bob+]

I built a new box and installed Vista Ultimate a couple of years ago,
which has begun to occasionally reboot in a spontaneous and random
manner. I don't recall exactly when this began, but the first time it
happened was at least 6 months ago. And it's not often; maybe averaging
once every 3-4 weeks. It has nothing to do with how long the PC has been
on: sometimes I've been on it for hours; but the last time it occurred,
I had only turned the PC on 20 minutes earlier. It has nothing to do
with what application I'm using at the time: browser, email client,
other. And when it crashes, first the monitor screen goes dark with lots
of multi-colored squiggly lines, and then my PC cleanly reboots. Aside
from the unwanted interruption and any newly input data lost, everything
always seems fine thereafter.

Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
does this sound more like a problem with my video card?

mobo or video problem. FWIW, bad video cards don't usually cause a
reboot, you just lose video.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Spontaneous shutdowns or restarts are usually hardware related. If it were
the OS, you'd get a blue screen (stop error) and a journal entry in the
event viewer. Most likely you have a component that is faulty, possibly
memory, power supply, fans, motherboard or processor. You can run the memory
diagnostic for starters, and open the case and blow out accumulated
dust/debris, especially on the processor fan and heat sink. While you're in
there, take a strong pen flashlight and check the capacitors on the
motherboard for any signs of bulging or leaks. If you find one, you likely
will need to replace the motherboard. The power supply can be tested by a
shop or swapped out for a known-good one.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[the wharf rat]

Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
does this sound more like a problem with my video card?

That's almost certainly a hardware problem. The first thing I'd
look at is power: a good quality power supply would be a good investment
and if it doens't help you needed a spare one anyway A UPS that includes
line conditioning is less than $100 these days, also.

If that doesn't help you could have a bad add-on card or a faulty
motherboard. If there's no indication of the problem in the system logs
then you're stuck with trial and error replacement.

 

[the wharf rat]

Hi,

event viewer. Most likely you have a component that is faulty, possibly
memory, power supply, fans, motherboard or processor. You can run the memory

It's not fans because a hot system won't successfully restart
immediately and the reboot pattern generally isn't purely random. It's
not memory because bad memory causes truly random errors, program crashes,
software errors, and the like. Memory that's bad enough to cause continuous
reboots generally won't pass selftest.


BTW bulging caps aren't good but don't indicate an immediate need
for replacement. I've seen older systems with leaking caps run fine until
finally junked, still working.

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Thanks to Rick Roders, the wharf rat, and +Bob+ for your tips. You
obviously all agree that it sounds like a hardware problem, which rings
true to me and leaves out Vista as a cause. I'll probably not do too
much until I need to (this remains a fairly rare occurrence), but I have
a new PU on hand, at least, in case I need to try swapping that out at
some point. And it hasn't been long since I've the box open and blown
out the dust.

 

[Daze N. Knights]

mobo or video problem. FWIW, bad video cards don't usually cause a
reboot, you just lose video.

If "bad video cards don't *usually* cause a reboot," do you know if a
bad video card might, at least, *sometimes* cause a reboot of Windows,
or to you think that this behavior actually rules out a faulty video
card and most likely points (after a faulty PSU) to a problem with the
motherboard?

 

[+Bob+]

If "bad video cards don't *usually* cause a reboot," do you know if a
bad video card might, at least, *sometimes* cause a reboot of Windows,
or to you think that this behavior actually rules out a faulty video
card and most likely points (after a faulty PSU) to a problem with the
motherboard?

You can't rule out anything with electronics. However, while I've seen
bad video cards do a lot of things, I've never seen one cause reboots.
I've seen them prevent booting and cause some really odd scenarios,
but I've always chased reboot problems somewhere else.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

You could try changing the "reboot on error" setting on start-up. This will
not fix the problem. Rather, it might allow you to see the blue screen and
read the error message.

With the system running one one of the occasions when it starts up, go to
Control Panel System Advanced system settings. Continue. Startup
and Recovery System Startup. Uncheck Automatically restart. OK out.

The next time it reboots on an error, you will be able to see the message.
Hopefully, it will be useful.


Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

 

[Daze N. Knights]

You can't rule out anything with electronics. However, while I've seen
bad video cards do a lot of things, I've never seen one cause reboots.
I've seen them prevent booting and cause some really odd scenarios,
but I've always chased reboot problems somewhere else.

Thanks for your reply, Bob.

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Let's see. One changes the "reboot on error" setting in the BIOS, right?

--

Daze

You could try changing the "reboot on error" setting on start-up. This
will not fix the problem. Rather, it might allow you to see the blue
screen and read the error message.

With the system running one one of the occasions when it starts up, go to
Control Panel System Advanced system settings. Continue.
Startup and Recovery System Startup. Uncheck Automatically
restart. OK out.

The next time it reboots on an error, you will be able to see the
message. Hopefully, it will be useful.


Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

 

[Dave]

Nope,
Start - Control Panel - System - Advanced - Startup & Recovery

--system failure--
uncheck [ ] Automatically restart
Ok


--
Windows 7 beta
http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview
http://download.live.com/wlmail

Let's see. One changes the "reboot on error" setting in the BIOS, right?

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Ah, yes. I see I missed that from Tom. Thanks.

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Tom:

Rather than change the "reboot on error" just yet, I finally snooped
around in the error log and actually found a possible clue there. This
may be a software problem, rather than hardware, after all, it seems.

Just before the crash and reboot, I find the following problem cited in
the log:

"Configuring the Page file for crash dump failed. Make sure there is a
page file on the boot partition and that it is large enough to contain
all physical memory."

Well, I see that, while I have my Page File set to 3GB, I increased my
RAM from 2GB to 4GB last September without making any corresponding
change to my Page File (not knowing one should). So, I'll try bloating
my Page File a bit to see if that solves this occasional crash & reboot
problem. If it does, then it was a software problem after all, eh?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Tom:

Rather than change the "reboot on error" just yet, I finally snooped
around in the error log and actually found a possible clue there. This
may be a software problem, rather than hardware, after all, it seems.

First thing I do with a new OS or computer: reset the reboot-on-error flag.

Just before the crash and reboot, I find the following problem cited in
the log:

"Configuring the Page file for crash dump failed. Make sure there is a
page file on the boot partition and that it is large enough to contain
all physical memory."

Well, I see that, while I have my Page File set to 3GB, I increased my
RAM from 2GB to 4GB last September without making any corresponding
change to my Page File (not knowing one should). So, I'll try bloating
my Page File a bit to see if that solves this occasional crash & reboot
problem. If it does, then it was a software problem after all, eh?

If that was the problem, glad you found it. Now untick Reboot on Error

 

[Daze N. Knights]

First thing I do with a new OS or computer: reset the reboot-on-error flag.


If that was the problem, glad you found it. Now untick Reboot on Error

OK. Done. Although I'm a bit up-in-the-air as to whether keeping "Reboot
on Error" ticked or unticked as my default choice is really preferable
or not.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

OK. Done. Although I'm a bit up-in-the-air as to whether keeping "Reboot
on Error" ticked or unticked as my default choice is really preferable
or not.

Well, I was a bit flip above (I am famous in some circles for being an
expert nag).

So, to atone, here's a bit of an explanation for my attitude: when Reboot
on Error is set, the error screen appears for under a second. It's not easy
to get the details from it. When you uncheck the setting, the screen stays
there long enough for you to read it & if necessary, to copy data from it.
Now you can reboot manually, so nothing is lost and something useful is
gained by doing the above.

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Well, I was a bit flip above (I am famous in some circles for being an
expert nag).

So, to atone, here's a bit of an explanation for my attitude: when Reboot
on Error is set, the error screen appears for under a second. It's not easy
to get the details from it. When you uncheck the setting, the screen stays
there long enough for you to read it & if necessary, to copy data from it.
Now you can reboot manually, so nothing is lost and something useful is
gained by doing the above.

Gottcha.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Great! Is it OK now?
--

Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

Gottcha.

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Great! Is it OK now?

So far so good, but this crash/reboot thing was a pretty infrequent
occurrence, so I'll probably really need to go a couple months or so
before I'm get convinced that I actually solved the problem. Thanks for
your interest.