PC keeps crashing / rebooting

[andrewison]

Has anyone has any symptoms like this , playing with in a game / sometimes watching a movie and the PC simply reboots itself.

The speec of pc is as follows

3.0 ghz XP
Asus A7N8X-E deluxe MB
1 gb Ram DDR 3200
128mb 9800 Pro
2 x 120gb HD PATA
1 x 200gb HD SATA
1 x Pioneer DVD-rw
1 x Pioneer DVD-rom
Audigy 2 ZS
550w PSU

I have XP pro with SP2 installed

Quite frustrating as I have no logs to look at . This has been going on for some time now , I have messed about with voltages for the DDR and AGP but still no go. I literally go playing a (Battlefield 2) game and then maybe 10 mins , 20mins ... it simplies reboots , the CPU temp isnt that high (peaking at 60) . I suspected it is the PSU for the PC , however I have had another PSU in there and the same happens randomly. The other alternative is that it is the 9800 pro (it does have it's own power input) from the PSU but I have no real way of confirming this. I did have a TV card in a PCI slot , however took that out of the equation by removing it . Any suggestions etc ... anyone has similar issues . So if you have had PC reboot mysteriously ... and u found a solution , please let us know

Cheers for any help

[DelTrotter]

what the log say when u reboot ?

i had a similar problem. i uninstalled any codec packs went back to the 4.9 cats use driver cleaner to remove newer cats. i also removed sp2 and any updates and reinstalled everything but thats was a last option. but after that not a problem ,

check air flow on the 9800 pro they heat up pretty bad

but i found that anything over 4.12 cats are crap for 9800 glitches and crashes everywhere.

try underclocking your pc for diagnosis put memory to SPD settings and cpu to default

make sure your chipset drivers, directx, sound drivers and are up to date.

[andrewison]

looking into it , I suspect it may be graphics (GPU) , tho no real way of confirming this . when you ask about logs , well there are none , as it is like a power cut happens .. so no time at all to write to HD and reason as for the power off. I am replacing one of the GPU with an inferior one and see if that produces any better results . Running a whole set of memory test to see if that is at fault ... arr.. the joy of running a descent PC ... I just wish it would give me a clear sign of what the bloody fault is ... i hate running tests cause it means i can have fun on PC .. boo hoo...

[marcode]

check yer heatsink is seated properly.

i had this on an a previous pc and it just rebooted when playing video, or games or whatever. turned out that while moving it one day the heatsink had been unseated causing the reboots.

[Violator]

Random reboots can be caused by power fluctuations from the PSU. What make is it out of curiosity?.

Also, check if your 'Automatically restart' option is on (Control Panel, System, Advanced, Startup and Recovery). If you untick this, it will give you a BSOD rather than rebooting (providing it's a system error causing the reboot and not power-loss).

[andrewison]

to be honest it is a shitty PSU from aria , however I have never had issues with it before (not withstanding , i am not saying I am not having issues now). I have had the same issues with I am suffering when I placed another psu in the box here , so that why i am thinking it is not the psu at stake. It might be the cpu issue , I am going to strip it down tonight and clean the whole thing up , maybe that will work. Otherwise I will go scrounging off friends to see if it is hardware related ,,,... hello ... can I borrow your grahics card ... , hello can i borrow ur PSU ....lol

[DelTrotter]

good luck mate . You need a good PSU not these cheap ones ive had 2 in the past year

consider gettin a brand new case for better cooling there well cheap on ebuyer at the mo

[andrewison]

Cheers for the advice chaps , I opened the fecker up last night and cleaned the cpu and re-applied thermal paste, borrowed a 9800 pro off friends and still crashed , did mem tests already and that seems fine. Next step is to borrow a psu off some one and test that . Thanks for the advice about changing the power off setting Voilator .. worked a treat got me a BSOD. Will Check into that further tonight. Next step after PSU tonight will be a new software rebuild from scratch. Might be .net related (saw that on a forum somewhere, alternativly I will swap the memory even before the rebuild. Again thanks for the advice Will let u know what the score is ...

Tho this is bloody annoying .. no PC .....arrrrrr

BTW , it was a PSU with the case , it was a Ezcool case (nice cases) ...the PSU is made bu EZCool as well , thats what on the badge ...anyway

[misty]

Hi,

I have that motherboard and experienced exactly the same problems as you, have u tried any of these solutions? I dont think, from personal experience, that its the PSU..but...

1. Check the voltage supplied to the chip in the Bios (VCORE) - it could be set at something like 1.57v - you should try and up it a bit to see if it stops the problem. With my new chip my machine BSOD and crashed etc until i got the voltage just right which is 1.7V. Also, check your CPU multi - my machine doesnt like 12.5 multi or 10x.....Voltages and multi were the cause of most issues I had with the new chip.

2. That board is very fussy about what memory you put in it - check the Asus website to see whats compatible. May sound strange but lots of people have had this issue and Asus have released new Bios's to allow better compatibilty with different brands.

3. Check all your Bios settings, what FSB etc are u running? Make sure you r running latest Bios.

4. 60c is quite hot - when u quite the game/app the temp will drop rapid so may not be a true reading - maybe something to look at.

Took a little to get my machine up and running, but am happy with the results:

AMD XP-M 2500+ (1800mhz @ 2415 mhz)
210 FSB
11.5 Multi
1.7 VCore
2.70 Volts Memory (samsung DDR-400 @ 420 mhz)
MB: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe

All Air Cooled !!!

Temps:
Cpu Idle: 46C
CPU Full Load: 50/51C
System Temp: 28C/29C

Hope this can be helpful....