Computer randomly rebooting

[jme5343]

Friday I received my $14 Sony Multi-Card reader. I shut my Shuttle SG31G2 off, pulled the power, hit the power button to discharge, and then plugged the reader into the USB header on the MB.

Since then, I've been an angry man. Windows 7 wouldn't boot, first thing I did was pull the card reader, but it kept going to a serious error recovery and junk like that. I made it to a point where I was able to do a system restore and I could get into W7, but it kept bombing. I did all the normal junk, unplugging all but the HDD, switching RAM, switching RAM slots, yadda, yadda.

Gave up and did a fresh install with another HDD I had lying around. Used XP this time because it's what I had handy. Install was fine, but the stupid thing is still restarting randomly. Sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after hours. I finally pulled the VGA card and attempted to use the onboard video. Now, it barely goes anywhere after a restart, and does the restarting much more frequently.

About all I can point to at this point is the PSU, but I'm perplexed as to a)root cause b)why it's worse with on board video. What say you folks? PSU? The mini-type PSU these things use are like $70, I hate to just throw one at it and hope it works, only to find I wasted my $.

 

[nboy22]

Is it actually restarting or is the power being lost?

What about if you take EVERYTHING out of the case, lay it out on something like a wooden table (or something with no static) with the bare minimum requirements that should be able to start the system, ex. video card (in your case no video card), 1 stick of ram, cpu, and hard drive.

One time I was statically charged and I was plugging in a USB device, the static traveled from my finger tip to the metal part of the USB connector on the computer's case. The static ended up frying my motherboard, but it did some very weird stuff, it was like a very gradual death. My computer would start up to the windows screen and then freeze, so I reset using the reset button. It then would only Start up to just the Bios Post screen, and then froze. I reset using the reset button one last time, and all I got was a black screen and I had to RMA.

I would like to also mention that I have a Sandisk USB card reader that has severely screwed my system's bootup multiple times on multiple systems. It would just hang at the bios post screen. Once I unplugged it, and then reset the computer, it would bootup fine. After the computer booted up, I would just plug in the card reader again once I had my windows desktop on the screen.

It could also be the PSU as you've mentioned, however I would just do everything you can before spending any money on anything. These types of issues can be tricky.

 

[jme5343]

I guess I'm not sure whether it's power loss or restarting. I'll be typing or watching youtube and it just quits, goes black and then starts back up with POST. I have also gotten a bsod a couple times.

I pulled everything and tried it again and nothing changed.

Does the shuttle use a regular ATX connection, so that I could bum a PSU from a friend and try that and see if things improve, or is proprietary like a Dell, does anyone know?

 

[nboy22]

Not sure what shuttle uses power-wise, but I'm guessing just a regular ATX-type connector. But if you could get some BSOD info that would be great. Does the BSOD screen stay up long enough for you to write down any of the info on it?

 

[power_hour]

I guess I'm not sure whether it's power loss or restarting. I'll be typing or watching youtube and it just quits, goes black and then starts back up with POST. I have also gotten a bsod a couple times.

I pulled everything and tried it again and nothing changed.

Does the shuttle use a regular ATX connection, so that I could bum a PSU from a friend and try that and see if things improve, or is proprietary like a Dell, does anyone know?

When you get a BSOD, check the event logs for the MS description. You can look them up online and see if it points to a resolution. Also look for a recent memory.dmp file. This can be analyzed with bugcheck software to help determine root cause.

off the record, I would consider running a full backup and then installing a clean copy of Windows for diagnostic purposes (then restoring your backup of your current setup after the tests).

With a clean OS, Run some offline memory and stress tests. See if the unit fails. If the unit continues to fail with a clean OS then at least you can safely point to hardware and be fairly certain drivers are not an issue. At that point the Power Supply or Motherboard becomes the main suspects as these are the two most common failure points.

post your progress. best of luck.