system reboots

[Yousaf]

Hi

I built the following system nearly five and a half years ago:

MB: Asus A7V333
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800
RAM: 512
HDD: 40GB Seagate as primary and 20GB Maxtor as secondary
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 64MB
Sound: SoundBlaster Live 5.1 OEM

I have a dual boot system with Ubuntu gutsy and Win2K. For the past
one year Win2K had been rebooting within the first five minutes of
startup. This has been infrequent issue until now. From yesterday, it
is not going past the first graphics bootup screen where it shows
Windows 2000 Professional logo with a small blue status bar underneath
it. When the blue status bar finishes, it reboots.

Ubuntu, however, has no problems at all.

I have checked through hardware monitor and everything seems to be
working OK. Therefore, I was wondering if anyone can help me resolve
this issue.

Thanks
Yousaf

 

[Dave]

Hi

I built the following system nearly five and a half years ago:

MB: Asus A7V333
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1800
RAM: 512
HDD: 40GB Seagate as primary and 20GB Maxtor as secondary
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 64MB
Sound: SoundBlaster Live 5.1 OEM

I have a dual boot system with Ubuntu gutsy and Win2K. For the past
one year Win2K had been rebooting within the first five minutes of
startup. This has been infrequent issue until now. From yesterday, it
is not going past the first graphics bootup screen where it shows
Windows 2000 Professional logo with a small blue status bar underneath
it. When the blue status bar finishes, it reboots.

Ubuntu, however, has no problems at all.

I have checked through hardware monitor and everything seems to be
working OK. Therefore, I was wondering if anyone can help me resolve
this issue.

Thanks
Yousaf

yeah, replace your failing power supply -dave

 

[Yousaf]

yeah, replace your failing power supply -dave

Thanks for replying, Dave.

But why Ubuntu has no problems?

 

[Paul]

Thanks for replying, Dave.

But why Ubuntu has no problems?

My experience is, processor power consumption under
Linux, can be the same (as low as) the power consumption
under Win2K. Win2K seems to be using a HLT instruction
in the idle loop. My 2.8GHz P4 draws only 13W when idle
in either OS.

What made a difference, is the installation of antivirus
software. Now, the Windows idle power consumption is higher
than it used to be, and by a significant amount. It still
doesn't draw the peak power, but it does draw more than the
13W number. By using the RMclock program, and having it
install its own idle loop with HLT instruction, the Win2K
power consumption again returned to 13W. But only as long as
RMClock was being used - after a reboot, without RMClock,
but with antivirus software in place, the power consumption
returned to its higher level.

So Windows can draw more power than Linux, but it really
depends on what software is installed. A fresh install
of Win2K SP4 should be able to match Linux for power
performance.

You might want to check the Event Viewer, to see if any errors
are being recorded on the reboot. If the power supply is flaky,
you might not get any error recorded.

Another indicator you can examine, is the green LED on the
Asus motherboard. It monitors +5VSB. The green LED on the
motherboard is not supposed to blink or glitch. It should
provide a steady light, as long as the switch on the rear
of the computer is in the ON position. If you see the green LED
wink out for a fraction of a second, just as the Windows
desktop appears, then that tells you the power supply is
bad.

Paul

 

[Dave]

Thanks for replying, Dave.

But why Ubuntu has no problems?

Yeah, I've run several distros of linux myself. They all have one thing in
common, they use far fewer resources than windows does, which translates to
lower power consumption than windows. -Dave

 

[Yousaf]

Thanks for replying Dave and Paul

It seems it isn't a power supply issue. I bought a new ATRIX 650T
650W, and windows did exactly the same as what it used to do with the
old power supply.

Thanks goodness Linux is working so far so I can back up all my data.

I'll try to repair windows, and if that does not work, I'll clean
install it.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do before I do
that?

Yousaf

 

[Paul]

Thanks for replying Dave and Paul

It seems it isn't a power supply issue. I bought a new ATRIX 650T
650W, and windows did exactly the same as what it used to do with the
old power supply.

Thanks goodness Linux is working so far so I can back up all my data.

I'll try to repair windows, and if that does not work, I'll clean
install it.

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do before I do
that?

Yousaf

Have you tested your system with Prime95 from mersenne.org ?
Prime95 is a mathematics application. But it has a nice
testing procedure called the "Torture Test". Prime95 program
is available for Linux and for Windows. When the Torture Test
runs, it does math calculations with a known answer. The answer
is checked, to detect problems with the CPU or the system memory.
Prime95 is more sensitive to memory problems, than memtest86+.
If Prime95 stops immediately, with an error, then you know that
your Linux install is not stable enough for serious computing
usage. Typically, a user might work on their memory settings,
to correct it.

Paul

 

[Yousaf]

OK, I'll try that. Thanks.