Windows 2000 restarting by itself

[Guest_imported]

I was running win98se and did a clean install of windows 2000 pro. It worked fine for one day, but the next day the system kept restarting itself automatically, like the disks were overheating. All my fans were running fine. It would restart at different stages too, sometimes during startup, other times after 5 mins of being in the system. I converted by to windows 98se and it is functioning fine with no problems no. Really the only thing I changed from day 1 to day 2 is I installed Norton Anti-virus 2002. Any ideas on this, I am confused. Could my bios possibly be causing a problem? The really problem I am having is why it worked fine one day and not the next.

 

[machinetype]

Can you boot into safe mode?Did you update your device drivers to be compatabile with windows2000? Specifically your video or printer, but not limited to everything else. I would also say it could be a cpu or power supply on the fritz but since it works alright with windows98 this is not it. So this limits it to a software or firmware problem. Try these steps if not done already.

1. Update device drivers and chipset drivers(which will probably be found at your motherboard manufacture's website)
A good place to look for device drivers is

http://www.driverguide.com

(when prompted for password it is user->drivers pass->all
2.Update your Bios which will probably be found at your motherboard's website.
3.If these do not work (and is a good idea in general) install Service Pack 2 (you could install sp3 but it has just come out so I would wait)

Good Luck,

SLM

 

[Guest_imported]

I did not update my video driver, but did update my printer. When I installed 2000, I did not have any issues with my video driver in the device managers view and was able to view 32bit color and everything. Am I ok here or would you still download the update? As far as the bios goes, the system is older and I did not install it. It is going to be hard to track that information down. I heard that all you had to worry about though was the ACPI settings and if the computer would let you go into standby mode you were alright. Correct? What will service pack 2 do to correct this?

 

[mwingeier]

Did you check the event logs? Unless changed, the default behavior of Windows 2k is to reboot the system when a periodic internal "bugcheck" is executed and a problem is found. (I can only assume this was an attempt by Microsoft to make the system more fault-tolerant) The event log will store the problem. You can also turn off that behavior by going to the performance tab and unchecking it.

 

[Guest_imported]

where are the event logs found

 

[mwingeier]

Go to Admin Tools, Computer Management, and you'll see the event viewer. I'd check all four logs for errors that are timestamped around the time that the system rebooted itself. I had this problem, and I narrowed it down to a driver that I then disabled (it was not needed), and the system has been stable as a rock since.

 

[Guest_imported]

I am not sure how to turn off automatic bug checking. I could not find anything under the performace tab that would indicate this

 

[GlenJohnson]

I may have missed it, but I don't see anybody talking about right clicking my computer, then go to the advanced tab. On startup and recovery is a check box that says automatically re-boot. Un-check this if you're pc is re-booting after you re-install the w2k pro system. Let us know. (Also make it a small memory dump. You'll see it on the same page) Good luck. Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
glen@nellsgiftbox.com

"A single stone can cause a building to collapse."
Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645); Spanish writer.

 

[mwingeier]

You didn't miss it, it's the only place I didn't tell him to get to. My oversight.

 

[GlenJohnson]

Thanks, thought I was losing it. I found out about the hard way. This machine had a problem, and one day it re-booted. Didn't think anything of it, I was new to w2k, had the os, but no training at the time. The re-boot kept getting more and more often, until when I started the pc up, by the time I logged on, it would re-boot. Ended up f-disking the beast. Now that's the first thing I do when setting up any w2k machine, be it server or pro. Uncheck auto-re-boot, un-check show list of operating systems, and unless you need it for de-bugging, change full kernel dump to small kernel dump. Good luck. Glen A. Johnson
Microsoft Certified Professional
glen@nellsgiftbox.com

"A single stone can cause a building to collapse."
Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645); Spanish writer.

 

[mwingeier]

Speaking of the memory dumps, do you know how to read them, or is there a utility out there that will decipher them? I was happy when I could read Win98's GPF's, now this.

 

[alhambra]

Sometimes a USB peripheral can cause this to happen like with USB ADSL modems and twin-cpu machines.
It's just something to check, but i've seen it happen.
unhook as much as you can and see how long the pc runs for.