Magical Restarting Computer

[Ospheral]

Hi all, Ok, I got a lil problem.

My computer likes to restart itself every so often, like when i am browsing a page or playin a game.

It has its moments of how many times it will restart in a day, light use 1-3 times, Heavy use 10+ times

I have asked other forums and they have said "the Power supply". I just want to know is there anything else that can cause this. At the moment My hdd tmp averages around 56 Degrees Celcius amd in the comp box around 98 Centegrade . Could this be the cause of prob?

here are my comp specs:

AMD 2400+ XP, Asus A7S333 Motherboard, 1 GB Ram, 80GB HDD, 128 MB Geforce 4, Soundblaster Audigy 2, CD-R, Sony DVD, webcam bla bla bla... heh

So Can anyone help me plz

Osp

 

[dakota81]

The cpu should not be 98 degrees celcius, that's just begging for a world of hurt. A lot of people consider ~60 degrees on the hot side.

Also the memory can cause problems like that too; in the bios manually set the ram to slower settings and trial-and-error to see if that helps out.

 

[Ospheral]

One thing i forgot to mention, the specs i got above is an upgrade. and this problem was even on mah old system:
amd tbird 1.0ghz Geforce 2, sb live!, 256 mb ram.
So i kept the case, power supply, fdd, and hdd.

SO the resetting also happend with the old system too.

*confused*

And it was the actual pc case that was 98 degrees, not the cpu. I had to make sure of that when i had the 1ghz tbird, so i bought a high performance fan, but still happend.

 

[DecoyBoy]

If you had Win 2K and now have XP the symptoms will usually be the same.

I had the same problem with my systems. I found that, in either Win 2K or XP, you have to go to >> System Properties >> Startup & Recovery (click Settings button) >> under the System Failure section uncheck Automatically restart.

Instead of rebooting, it will give you a message letting you know something is wrong. At least then you will know what is going on. I was able to find that there was a problem with one of the programms I installed.

Good luck and happy hunting,

 

[Jontmke]

If inside your box is 98 degrees then your cpu must be really hot!!! In my box the cpu is usually 20 Fahrenheit degrees hotter than the case interior.
As I am an American I still have problems with Celsius , but isn't 98 degrees almost the boiling point?
Your CPU should not get over 50, maybe 60 degrees, and your case interior should only be 5 to 10 degrees above the ambient room temperature.
You need a better cooling solution.

Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)

 

[Ospheral]

lol, well yeah, i am soon investing in some high speed fans, new powersupply and a hard drive caddy/cooler coz my hdd is at the moment 57 Degrees Celsius/ 134 Degrees Farenheight (or how ever u americans spell it)

 

[robsid]

I had a similar problem. Are you playing games on the internet or from CD. If on the internet, like pogo, it is a problem with the Java. You have to download Sun Java.
That cured my problem. It may also be a ram problem. Rotate you memory so that if it is a bad stick, it will not be affected in the same way

 

[Jontmke]

That is still too hot!!
If the hard drive is 134 I'll bet your cpu is 160!
You could use it as a hot plate!

Do you have a fan (or two) in the front drawing in air?
Do you have a fan (or two) in the rear blowing the hot air out?
Do you have a big, well made, heat sink for the cpu?
And a nice cpu\heatsink fan?
Is the place where your computer sits well ventilated?

When the fans in the back of my case got unplugged the temperature went up 20 degrees (F).

Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)

 

[dakota81]

Try to pick up some Artic Silver from a dealer or store somewhere to put between your cpu & heatsink instead of the current thermal compound or pad. It's not going to completely solve your heat issue, but it's an inexpensive way to drop a couple degrees while adding no additional noise.

 

[Freestone]

The maximum die temperature for an AMD 2400+ XP processor is 85C (185F). In a well-cooled system, this temperature should never be remotely approached.

AMD has, in my opinion, a good site containing processor and heatsink installation videos. It also has recommendations regarding thermal paste vs. thermal pads:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_869_4348^6678,00.html

As far as cases and airflow:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/26003.pdf

With that said, Ospheral, are there any errors shown in Event Viewer, System Log?

 

[Dingusm]

Ospheral Has already solved the problem! He (she) told us he upgraded his computer but kept the same box and PS. This problem WAS happening before. Bingo!!! The power supply is failing. this is probably a cause of the high temps he reports. Power supplies are cheap these days. Buy a new one and I'll bet your problems go away!

 

[donavichi]

before you go out and replace the power supply, try unchecking 'rcman' in startup section of msconfig. Those Audigy cards can play havok with XP.

 

[markjd]

I have often had problems with clients PC's doing the above in Windows XP and/or Windows 2000 and all the above suggestions have worked in different cases.

One very common solution not mentioned is a motherboard BIOS upgrade. I know that this does not look like the problem here because your previous system had the same problem but it is possible that the problem is being caused by different things on the two systems.

 

[WB6BFN]

I've seen this type of problem with other OS's before and it was associated with the power supply. This is not to say that this is YOUR problem. However, I had an industrial computer that had a poor connection on the 5V supply to the motherboard. As the connector contact heated up it increased resistance until the 5V dropped below toleable levels. The computer then reset just like someone had pressed the reset button. Something to consider - poor power wiring contacts.