older pc reboots randomly

[dbarton]

ive been using a 2.2ghz p4 for years. it works perfetcly, but in the past two weeks it has decided to reboot what seem randomly to me.

i've run antivirus sweeps, checkdsk, emptied paging file, and run norton window dr..

nothing seems to help.

I can use it for many hrs with no problems, and then it may suddenly reboot, then is good again for many more hours.

running gm in a few mins to check memory.

it has an older style power supply then what i think is now used so not sure if i can just try another, or it'd its a windows issue, and not hardware at all

[xp pro]

not sure what to do.

any ideas of the next step to troubleshoot?

 

[btcomm1]

Last time I had an issue with random reboots it was the ram, you might to try one at a time and possibly a new ram stick you know to be good also could be your motherboard. Those would be my guesses.


Could also be heat, have you checked the temps to see if you are over heating? If so you might want to reapply thermal compound and re seat the heat sink.

 

[dbarton]

I did a full ram test and it seemed to pass 100%

I have a temp monitor on it, and not overheating..

[Been working perfectly since i posted that messga[e 24hrs ago, so who know what gremlins it has!]

Annoying!

 

[btcomm1]

How long did you let the ram test run? You should let it run overnight.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Check the caps, this is around the time the caps were oozing brown causing reboots. Inspect them all carefully for bulging and brown crusty stuff

http://images.google.com/imgre...ls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US😱fficial%26sa%3DN

 

[SViper]

Last time I had random reboots, it was because my system was drawing too much power. Had to upgrade my power supply. Reason being is that as time progresses, a power supply loses some of its effectiveness. That's why it's never a good idea to get a PS that gives "just enough" power to your system. If you can get a hold of a different PS, try that.

 

[dbarton]

I set my virtual memory file to 0, rebooted a few times, then set it back to 1024, and so far it seems to be more stable..

If not, I'll let mem test run overnight so i can see if it fails OUTSIDE of Windows too.

[thanks so far everyone]

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: dbarton

I set my virtual memory file to 0, rebooted a few times, then set it back to 1024, and so far it seems to be more stable..

If not, I'll let mem test run overnight so i can see if it fails OUTSIDE of Windows too.

[thanks so far everyone]

That suggests you had a software issue, so do you have dumpfiles in c:\windows\minidumps?

 

[dbarton]

I don't seem to have any recent files in that directory. Maybe I have that shut off
somewhere?

Anyway, been abiout 4 days and no reboots!