ARGHH!! What can cause PC to reboot on its own?

[DaviDaVinci]

I'm downloading a bunch of stuff and then my pc just SHUTS OFF and reboots. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just lost all my torrents!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BG4533]

Did you get any sort of blue screen or indicator or anything?

Unfortunately, it could be a lot of things?

First of all, how old is your PSU and what kind of system do you have? Have you had any other instability problems?

 

[nboy22]

Most likely a Power Supply problem, i had the same problem where i do not believe my system was passing around enough power, my solution was to buy a new 450 watt antec Power supply, now i don't have that problem any more. about the same time i RMA'd my ram, but that isn't the cause i don't believe.

 

[Corporate Thug]

PSU

 

[drag]

A virus will do that, too.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: drag
A virus will do that, too.

So will a lot of Via chipsets with AMD processor and powerful video cards. Use a program like Motherboard Monitor to check all the voltages.

 

[JimRaynor]

It could definitely be your ram too, might want to run memtest and see what happens.

 

[DaviDaVinci]

It was the weirdest thing ever. If I recall, I had a similar problem with my older PC.

The current one is:
1700XP
Epox 8KHA+ (i think, I'm at work now)
2 sticks of crucial pc2100
Can't remember power supply
ATI AIW 8500DV video card
Sound Blaster Live!
100 gig western digital drive
Lite-on burner
some dvd player


its a basic pc and this is the first time it's done this.

here's another thing that might lead me to believe its the power supply

sometimes a couple of the fans will churn. Like it's trying to spin faster but it slows down, then goes back up. Sometimes, it just stops. My case iswide open right now.

hmm....i don't want to buy another PS. What else can I do?

 

[InlineFive]

I don't know if this helps but I have had bad USB ports short out the motherboard which caused it to restart randomly.

 

[Ionizer86]

If you're running XP, try turning off the Automatically Restart in the Startup and Recovery.

 

[brentkiosk]

I would suspect the PS too. I had that problem. All voltages checked out ok (within 5%) but a different PS cured it. Before getting a new one, try disconnecting and reconnecting the connector on the MB and HD - it's a long shot, but a bad connection could be the culprit.

For testing, can you get ANY supply? Even 200W? Get rid of everything you don't need (DVD, CD, 1 memory stick, etc) and try it for a while to see.

 

[Bitdog]

I'm thinking it's a software problem of some kind.

Like, sleep time power conservation mode kicks in when the mouse or keyboard isn't touched for a few minutes
like what happens when you download something.
I suspose all it would take is a flaw in the software some where associated with the mode, into sleep, out of sleep,
hard drive park, or something to make it reboot.
Disable all power save modes and retry it ? CMOS setup power modes?

I got an internet provider that disconnected me after an hour.
It happened for a few months untill I got it fixed.
I think there was a option of length of on line time in the browser that was set at default "screw ya in an hour"

If you're using Windows have you done a string search for "FAIL" in your BOOT.LOG type files ?
control pannel, system, device manager search for question marks or bad stuff ?
MSCONFIG.EXE startup tab shows what you load at startup, sometimes it just get to be a catch all
from all the bad programs you've loaded and deleted in the past. All trying to load crap you don't use.
You can remove that junk using C:\WIN\SYSTEM\REGEDIT
do a string search for the offender listed in MSCONFIG startup
and delete it or semicolon the executable name like this ;c:\win\reboot.exe

I hope that helps somehow ?

 

[PunDogg]

is your processor heatsink and fan working?? i had that problem a week or so ago, bought a new heatsink and fan, everything works great now

DOgg

 

[sandorski]

Hmm, are you sure you lost your Torrents? They should fine, mine are after a power outage.

 

[Slammy1]

What software are you d/l'ing with? I doubt PSU since it happens at that characteristic time. Some P2Ps will try to set you up as a server if you have broadband, but if your processor is incapable you'll get reboots.

 

[DaviDaVinci]

Originally posted by: PorBleemo
I don't know if this helps but I have had bad USB ports short out the motherboard which caused it to restart randomly.

My USB's don't work either

I've been using a USB 2.0 PCI card. It restarted today again while i was at work !! I'm suspecting a mobo or PSU problem.

I'll start narrowing it down when i get my new laptop in a couple of days.

EDIT: JUST turned off again! Ahh, i just remembered, this started shortly after i had stuck in another stick of crucial ram i bought from a user here. Can a stick of Ram cause this?

 

[Atlantean]

Power supply, overheating... I had same thing happen to me because windows was getting old on my pc (like a year without a reinstall, I know it was stupid)

 

[blodhi74]

I had an issue very similar to that and as it turned out the one of the fans in the PSU had quit working. under normal loads it was ok but as soon as i tried to multi task the system would reboot. Also check for viruses and adware. good luck

 

[buckmasterson]

If you are using a PCI modem, try moving it to a different PCI slot.

 

[thunderhorse]

Well lets see. Sometimes a couples of fans slow down and sometimes it just stops, I'm guessing the pc just shuts down. Fans slow down because their bearings or pivit points are going out, and lack of voltage. PC just stops, well thats another story. Power drops low enough or quits long enough to clear the memory or the software routine. Kind of like the clock on your microwave, the lights blink in the house just enough to be noticed but enough to clear the routine in the clock programing. See if you can borrow a PSU and hook it up and see if it will do the trick. Please keep us informed on you progress so if this does not work we'll know what to try next. And they said repairing computers over the internet isn't fun. I guess it depends on your point of view. Good luck.

 

[mitso]

Unplug your power supply cable, and with a needle nose pliers
pinch the terminals to make sure they are making good contact
with the pins on the motherboard. I had a problem
like that , it turned out to be the restart terminal making
intermitent contact. Hope this works for you.

 

[Mem]

hmm....i don't want to buy another PS. What else can I do?

As already stated could be a few things from PSU,ram to software etc,btw with the Epox 8KHA+ I would have a look at your capacitors around the cpu area,since it`s very possible you could have some leaking or bulging,look at the top of the capacitors & see if there are any orange/brown like substance on the top of the caps,also the top of the cap should be flat not dome shaped.

The reason I say that is my Epox 8kha+ has some bad caps,quite a few infact and first signs of stability problems with bad caps is normally reboots and freezes etc.

 

[beatle]

Yikes, it could be a lot of things. I found a new way to reboot my pc was to force my onboard NIC (on NF7-S) to 100/full duplex and then put a load on the interface by copying a file larger than a meg to my backup server. It would reboot EVERY time until I switched it back to autodetect. Card shuffling, PSU, ram, and cooling of components are all possible sources for this problem.

 

[Jojo7]

Originally posted by: DaviDaVinci
JUST turned off again! Ahh, i just remembered, this started shortly after i had stuck in another stick of crucial ram i bought from a user here. Can a stick of Ram cause this?

Ya dude. Especially if you are running windows xp. By default, win xp reboots itself instead of displaying the "blue screen".

Try http://www.memtest86.com/ with your current setup. If it finds errors, take out the stick of ram you just bought and see if it still finds errors.

 

[tooltime]

ran a virus scan recently? the big guys offer them free online