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Intermittent reboots on new computer

I

imported_Liquid

Junior Member
Hey everyone,
I just put together a new computer for my girlfriend for christmas. Everything is up and running good with two exceptions. The minor problem is that the rear sound ports are not working (although the front headphone jack does). The main problem though, is at seemingly random intervals the computer just reboots.

Here is the build:
Chaintech vnf3-250 mobo
Athlon 64 2800+
Radeon X800 SE
80 gig western digital drive
gig of muskin pc 400 ram
lite on dvd writer

I have all the most recent drivers installed for the mobo and the video card. Windows is updated, we tried running a repair on the OS. When we start up the comptuer and check the cpu temp in the bios it is around 49-50 deg C. It seems like that may be a bit high especially since the comptuer is idling, but after one of the random reboots we went directly into setup and the temperature was 49 deg. C. We set an autoshutoff temperature to try to make sure nothing gets damaged if the problem is overheating, but it was rebooting before the autoshutoff was set. Besides from past experiences doesn't overheating usually lead to a freeze rather than a reboot? I'm not sure what to do, i almost wonder if it could be something as silly as the reset switch on the case is messed up and randomly triggers on its own sometimes. I suppose it could be a bad power supply. The computer seems to run fine in all other respects, and the timing and activity that causes the reboot is varied, sometimes it is at idle windows, sometimes it is while my gf is playing world of warcraft, but not particularly even in a graphicly intensive area of the game. Sometimes the crashes happen within a half an hour of eachother, but sometimes it will run for 4 hours or more before getting one.

Thanks for any advice on how to fix this!

-Mark

sorry for the long writeup 🙂
 
What brand and model is the power supply, and what memory voltage did you choose for the RAM?
 

First thing you want to do is make sure that your system is actually rebooting and not just blue screening with the "Automatically reboot" checked.

Right click on My Computer--> Properties-->Advanced->Startup and Recovery and deselect "Automatically restart" if it's checked. When unchecked if your system is blue screening , you'll see it.

If your system is really rebooting , then it's most likely hardware related but if it's blue screening then it could be hardware or software related.

Regardless of the exact problem , I'd stress test my system with Prime 95 and a memory testing app like memtest86+.

I'd also check out my harddrive with the manufacturer's utility to make sure it's okay.

 
it is blue screening, I also realized that I hadn't patched the bios, but chaintech's wonderfully quick (1k/sec) download site for it in taiwan is refusing my connection at the moment 🙁, so I can't grab those. The blue screen doesn't have any text on it though, and I thought normally it listed the executable involved or something of that sort. I'm going to try to see if I can run memtest and get it to work. Any thoughts on the blue screen though?
 
alright, i ran memtest86+ and it seems to be throwing some errors for the memory. I took the memory out and put it back in to make sure the connections were good (it was tricky to push into the slot in the first place). Ran memtest again and it looked to show even more errors.

This probably means that memory is where my problem is, unless it is a problem with the motherboard. When starting the bios the motherboard has been throwing several post codes. They aren't all listed in the manual, and the online manual is download only from, you guessed it, the taiwan server that is still down. Here are the post codes and the manual's explanation if I have one for it:

52-test all memory (clear extended memory to zero)
65-Initialize PS/2 mouse //maybe because it's using a usb mouse?
75-Detect and Install all IDE devices: HDD, LS120, ZIP, CDROM //no idea here, they should all be installed...
7F-1. switch back to text mode if full screen logo is supported
-if errors occur, report error and wait for keys
-if no errors occur or F1 key is pressed to continue: w/Clear EPA or customization logo
87-Not listed
8B-Not listed
94-1. enable L2 cache
2. program boot up speed
3. chipset final initialization
4. power management final initialization
5. clear screen & display summary table
6. program k6 write allocation
7. program p6 class write combining.

I reran memtest to throw some errors to copy down for you guys to see. It only listed a few this time so far, but they are formatted the same whenever they appear, which is as follows (underscores used for spacing):

Tst__Pass__Failing Address_________Good___Bad____Err-Bits__Count__Chan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_5___0____00004aaa0e8 - 74.6mb___ffffffff__ffffffbf__00000040____1
_5___0____00005aaa0c8 - 90.6mb___ffffffff__ffffffbf__00000040____1

I've got 256 megs o ram sitting in an old computer, i'm gonna throw that in and see if that tests ok. I'll update after that 🙂. What do you guys make of all those post codes?

UPDATE: Guess my old 256 is too old, the chip seems a slightly different style but looks different enough from my current memory that i can tell it won't fit. I have a gig in my current computer i could take out and test with, but im worried about something bad happening like the motherboard is bad and is killing the memory somehow. Maybe i could instead run the memory that is testing bad in my computer and see if I get the same problem? What do you guys think is the best way to further test this?
 
How about the answers to MechBgon's earlier questions?
He's leading you down the right path (as he usualyy does).
 
Whoops, forgot to post those answers while typing everything else.

Its a 420 watt kingwin power supply that came with the case.

I didn't set any specifics as far as memory voltage, here is what my bios shows for the set and actual voltages:

Memory Voltage____________2.56 V
+3.3 V____________________3.26 V
+5.0 V____________________5.16 V
+12 V____________________11.96 V
- 12 V____________________(-)11.70

is that the info you guys are looking for? There is no specific labeling on the power supply besides a kingwin sticker on it, but if I pull it out of the case it probably has more detailed info on the side or somewhere else that is currently hidden. Thanks again for the help.
 
I believe your memory is undervolted. Try knocking it up around 2.7-2.8 and run memtest again, if you get errors, loosen the timings and try again. I had random reboots too, due to that very problem.
 
Considering you have a pretty decent video card and CPU, I would go get a quality-brand power supply, since I don't know if Kingwin is any good, or just another of these accursed freebie units that get thrown into cases to make a sale. Enermax, Antec, Fortron... those are safe bets.
 
well i swapped the memory from my computer to my girlfriends (the one that im fixing). Her memory tested fine with memtest on my computer, and the test is almost done on her computer using my memory and it hasn't thrown any errors yet either. Normally it would have thrown errors by now. Do you think the mushkin could have been incompatible with her motherboard? Hehe if so she might steal my corsair xms! The test just finished with no errors. I'm gonna update the bios and see if it throws anymore errors today and tomorrow.

I may replace the power supply too. Its really loud anyway, i like my fortron one in my computer, very quiet 🙂. Thanks for the help guys, i'll let you all know how it turns out or if i need more help!
 
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