PC Reboots on its own 1

[austinh]

A pc reboots on its own without any reason. What can I check. I remember reading about some symtom like that but I forgot what to check for. Someone help

 

[Skark166]

I had a similar problem. It was my video card drivers that caused the shutdown. More than likely, you've got some bad drivers as well. Make sure everything is up-to-date. Especially Video.

You could also try pulling cards out. Try taking everything out but 1 stick of ram, your CPU (of course), your hard drives (may even take all out but your system drive), CD-ROM, and video card. See if it still shuts itself down.

Also could be power management. Disable Power management in your BIOS and in Windows to test. Scarecrow

 

[Accessdabbler]

Reboots almost always point to power. Check your wall outlet. Check the circuit your PC is on. Check the internal power supply.

 

[austinh]

Thanks for the suggestions guy. Will do.

 

[smah]

The only exception to what Accessdabbler said is if you're running Windows XP. By default, XP will reboot on Stop errors. This behavior can be turned off if you're using XP.

 

[gargouille]

Boot it to Safe Mode and let it run. If it does it there...that points to hardware problems.

 

[chriseubank]

let it sit at the bios screen for a while, if it reboots then it's a hardware problem.

If you are running 2000, nt4, or XP then check your event viewer (right click "My COmputer, select Manage for 2000 or XP) to see if you got a "Stop 0x000000##" msg, most cases willc ause the comptuer to reboot and if you do a search on Microsoft's website, then it might tell you possible causes. Most of them are hardware failures, or device driver problems.

Good luck,
Chris

 

[jonhiker]

other possibility. it's winter(where i'm at), are there any space heaters or something like that on the same circuit?

 

[dfort]

I fought the problem for a while and found nothing. It would only do it once in a while but when you where doing something important. Then I noticed a noisy fan on my video card so I replaced the card. The problem went away. I had checked or replaced all power options like supply, backup, power supply and looked for the stop orders and etc.

 

[SQLScholar]

If your in your BIOS as ChrisEubank (?????) sugguests then your probably not streaching enough of your hardware components to cause this failure.

I think Hardware is the problem, at the sec i have the same problem (but its got more frequent - like every 15mins) and i am inclined to say its the memory.

TIA

Dan



----------------------------------------
There are 2 types of computer, the prototype and the obsolete!!

 

[ToryG]

I have had this issue when the CPU is going bad. Occationally Windows will cause the reboot, but if windows is going to do the random reboot it will almost always post a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) before it reboots even if it is only a split second. You could also look in the event viewer (if using WINNT 4, Win2k, or XP). If you don't get a BSOD, it is probably hardware. If you have tried the other steps mentioned, I would recommend disabling the cache (internal and external) on the CPU and booting into windows and letting it run for awhile. Granted this will probably make your computer run slower than ever, but it will let you know if it is a CPU going bad or not.

ToryG

 

[austinh]

they all sound like great suggestions and I will keep them in mind. One thing that did happen which I thought was strange was the first time it rebooted it came up with the "no operating system picture" with the "Press F1 key picture" on it. But after it was restarted then it booted fine but after that it restarted on its own like 4 seperate times. Im not sure what that means. Could it be the hard drive?

 

[INBred]

i too have also had this problem on an amd k6-500 and i resolved the issue by updating the bios.

But be warned you can seriously screw up your motherboard
if the update fails...........

 

[dfort]

One other thing I found after replacing my video card is from MicroSoft. They say that a ATI card with 64 megs of DDR mem if it has the wrong driver will do this.. They say use at least the 6.13.3276 driver from ATI's web site. This is the card I had. It is hard to determine weather it is software or hardware relate. I have had hard drives do this to servers in the past but very rarely. So this led me around until I stumbled onto the video card then found all this information afterwards. Check what kind of card you have.

 

[chriseubank]

This definately sounds like the hard drive, a BIOS problem wouldn't likely be so intermittent.

I would start by running a surface scan (if it stays up long enough to do one) ... boot with your OS cd, but don't run setup and use the scandisk from the CD to do it.

It sounds like the Master Boot Record of the hard drive has either a physical error, or it is corrupted. Windows' FDISK utility has a switch to re-write this record (fdisk /mbr) which I've found to be useful in situations like this, however make sure you have a backup before doing this ....!!

 

[austinh]

Well dfort I havent changed the video card since it has been there. It is an IBM Netvista and everything is factory. Nothing has been touched or changed with the hardware. Im gonna try that surface scan chris thanks.

 

[Elw00d]

I just had to troubleshoot a rebooting PC today. It would first reboot in windows, and sometimes turn on by itself. After trying another PS, Video card, and removing PCI cards I figured it was the memory which I had a feeling it was from the start. It was infact the memory just to let you know.

 

[gargouille]

IF you've booted to Safe Mode and it still did it, hardware is indeed suspect.
IF you're looking to test the hard drive, why not just download the mfr.'s diagnostics and run it? Would take less time than a surface scan and you'll come down this road sooner or later, anyway.
Testing the memory with a free downloadable memory tester would be another area I'd explore.

http://www.simmtester.com/page/products/doc/download.asp

is a good one.

 

[austinh]

thanks gargouille

 

[VPNing]

learningleader,

I read all of the posts but no one mentioned w2k and wxp's inherent reboot. Typically when NT4 had a problem you would get the ole BSOD. What most people do not realize is that the BSOD contains helpful information when it comes to failures software/hardware etc. Unfortunately everyone likes to complain about the BSOD. So......now when w2k or wxp is loaded, by default, the os's are set to automatically reboot when they detect a problem in an effort to correct themselves. (Obvously that never works)
Therfor, if you would like to get the BSOD instead of the useless auto reboot right mouse click my computer, properties, advanced, startup and recovery, "uncheck" automatically restart. Now the next time your system gets upset you will receive the BSOD. When you do get it, look at the very last entry on the secod line. It will typically reference a file. Research that file and see what it associates with and you should be good to go.
Good Luck