New PC keeps restarting (revisited)

[torturedmind]

I have posted this problem a few days back. I thought
buying a brand new and good 500w power supply will solve
my problem (btw, the old one was a 300w power supply).

But after leaving my pc on for the weekend, i found out
that it again restarted. Could it be possible that the
cause may be software in origin? Any ideas are very much appreciated...

torturedmind

 

[williambishop]

Don't know exactly what the original post was, but can you revisit it with us again?
That being said, what made you decide to change out your PS?

 

[bluebass]

I picked up a Pentium 2 computer at my local dump that had this problem. It turned out that the floppy drive was shorting out so there wasn't a complete circuit in the computer. I would keep removing components (i.e. floppy drive, cd drives) one by one utill the computer works. Then contact the seller and get a new one of that component.

 

[mainegeek]

Look in the bios for "Power Loss" option. It may be set to boot after power loss.

 

[mikecx]

What brand/speed processor. AMD's with inproper cooling and/or the wrong cooling paste will restart once the temp hits too high. Also, check the event viewer to see if there are any logs in there. It should be in the control panel under administrative tools somewhere.

 

[mainegeek]

Was the original post about pc powering on by itself?
or am I in the wrong one.

 

[torturedmind]

i can't find my original post. anyways, my system is as
follows:

MoBo : ECS M922 VIA Chipset
CPU : Intel P4 1.6GHz
RAM : 128MB SDRAM 133MHz
HDD : 40GB Seagate 5400rpm
FDD : 1.4MB 3.5" Sony Floppy Drive
VGA : Riva TNT 32MB
Sound: C-Media on-board

the reason i changed my PS was bcuz some1 in the forum
suggested to i shd. i also consulted other forums and gave
me the same solution. but the solution didn't solved
anything. right now, am expermenting on the BIOS setup
by enabling and disabling features as i go along. i also
read somewhere in this forum that if the pc is restarting
from the BIOS (which is in my case), problem is hardware in
nature, if it's just restarting the OS, then it is software
in origin.

also, i noticed that when i open several applications,
windows bring me to the "blue screen of death" but so far
hasn't restarted my pc yet.

any more suggestions will be gratefully taken...

torturedmind

 

[williambishop]

Depends on the power supply, generally hardware restarts are tough to diagnose. Just do as advertised, switch out parts till you find the right one. I would suspect cooling to the cpu, memory or the video card. Boot it with no floppy, no HD, no sound or add on cards. Just cpu, memory, and video and start from there.

 

[torturedmind]

i would like to remind everyone that the restarting
is at different time intervals, i. e., sometimes when
i'm in a middle of a program debug session, or cd burning
session, or just plain browsing the web, or even after
a clean boot.

thanx for the great ideas you guys (and gals if any)...

torturedmind

 

[ryan99]

As some others have said, it sounds like either a CPU, RAM, or Vid Crd problem. Also, I assume you've checked out the power output from the wall? Are you using a UPS?

 

[Jackiechan311]

my computer did this when a certain program that had been deleted but not uninstalled called on a nonexistant ram string, a peice of data it had saved a long time ago. whenever i ran the program, it would restart, i had to reinstall it and then uninstall it. Do you run any particular program that restarts it.

 

[Guest_imported]

Man, I am having the same problem. I have Win 2000 Adv Srv and it started rebooting / restarting every hour about a week ago. So I got a different Harddrive and tried to install 2000 Server again. It still reboots for no reason, but now it does it whenever windows tries to continue with setup (It never finished with the install b/c of the reboots).

My setup: (Worked fine for about 2-3 yrs with NT Server 4, then 2000 Adv Srv)
- P2/350
- 640 MB RAM
- BE6-2 motherboard
- WDigital 30GB HD, new: 14GB Quantum Fireball
- Voodoo3 AGP video card
- SB Live
- 56k US Robotics Modem
- Linksys Ethernet card
- Creative DVD Drive / Memorex CD-ROM (Master/Slave on second data cable)

Any ideas why a computer would just reboot by itself? I tried moving to a diffrent outlet and that didn't work. I also tried unhooking the floppy drive. I thought maybe it was the power supply or something Hardware related since mine reboots with 2 different harddrives...I did take out my power supply, took it apart, cleaned it, and tried again, but to no avail. All my fans work and have for 2-3 yrs. I also have the entire case off, in a room with A/C and a ceiling fan so I don't think it's a heating issue. Any Ideas guys?? HELP!!

 

[torturedmind]

at first i thought it was zonealarm (personal ed.) that
do the restarting cuz at some point while my pc was running,
windows just display the "blue screen of death" and when
i press any key and control returns to windows, zonealarm
had shutdown abnormally but my pc was running ok.

yesterday, i disabled the s.m.a.r.t. from the bios and
reduced its CPU speed from 1.6GHz to 1.2GHz and left it
overnight while it was downloading some things. i also left
it with a couple of apps running. this morning, i was
expecting to see my pc restarted again but surprisingly it
didn't. all downloads finished succesfully and all other
apps that i left running were still running. (zonealarm was
also running overnight).

well, i still have to observe its behavior for a couple of
days more and see if it will still restart at random. but
as of now, it's still running okay (minus the "blue screen
of death&quot. i'll just update you guys on this.

i'm really glad that i discovered this forum. it
really proved that "more heads is better than one".
thanks y'all for the great ideas. i may not mark it
but you all know that you guys deserve stars...

torturedmind

 

[williambishop]

Were you overclocking?

 

[torturedmind]

no. the box says my p4 is 1.6GHz. and everytime the POST
shows, it displays "pentium 4 1.60GHz (blah blah)" even
it has been reduced to 1.2GHz.

torturedmind

 

[williambishop]

clear the bios again, set to defaults and run it for a while. Take out the add-ons.

 

[torturedmind]

here's the update guys. i think the problem is zonealarm 3.1. cuz when i include it in my start up, my pc keeps on restarting, sometimes displaying the "blue-screen of death" before doing so. i tried uninstalling the software but when i restart in normal mode, windows was unable to continue and was looking for a certain file. so i re-install zonealarm again but this time i didn't include it in my start up files. and as of now, so far so good. no restarting at random of any kind.

i also noticed that several IRQ's are being shared by different devices, i tried changing the device settings but it didn't worked so i let windows managed the IRQ settings and everything works fine. question: how can i set so many devices to have a unique IRQ# if the IRQ#'s are just so few?
does this mean that i dont have to be concerned about shared IRQ's?

thanks for the help guys...

torturedmind

 

[williambishop]

No, usually it's not a problem. I think most everyone's pc shares at least two devices on the same IRQ(usually sound and network or video and network)....You'll be fine.

 

[apex1x]

There is not much you can do about the plug & play windows likes to do. IRQ sharing should rarely cause any problems, and you can always try to force the settings through either BIOS or jumpers.
Sometimes a chip, such as the RAM, will sneak out of place and cause random restarts. Try to move the chips around and make sure everything is secure hardware wise.
Try disabling certain programs from starting up in windows using "regedit" or "msconfig" to troubleshoot a software problem.
Good luck.

~Apex1x
Never become expert at something you hate. They'll make you do it for the rest of your life.