restart problem

[nick1985]

my firends computer restarts on its own about once a day. he has a cdrw, 40 gig, ti-4200, 512 RAM, 2100 athlon, a-drive, 2 case fans, and heatsink. he has a 300 watt antec.
whats could be the problem

 

[nick1985]

also a7n8x mobo

 

[spanky]

is the reboots totally random, or can he narrow it down to a certain operation? i would guess psu first. but if u have some extra ram... u could swap out the ram and see if that helps. also... recently i had some problems with my rig randomly rebooting. turns out it was bad capacitors on the motherboard. u might want to check those capacitors out.

 

[nick1985]

its completely random. how do i check the capacitors??? also he has 512 crucial RAM and i dont think thats the culprit

 

[spanky]

look at the top of the capacitors (those little cylander thingies) on the motherboard... the tops should be perfectly flat. if they are bubbled up or rounded or even worse... leaking some ooze... then u got bad capacitors. i would hope with such a new mobo, u would not have bad caps... but hey, its worth taking a look (and besides... taking a peek is so easy).

 

[nick1985]

will a memory test clear help me to decide if it is the memory at fault?

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: nick1985
will a memory test clear help me to decide if it is the memory at fault?

i have no idea what a memory test clear is. but if ur ram is at fault, i would just try to rma it. if u suspect the ram is bad... get a ram tester.. i think u can get one here

 

[nick1985]

are there any tests that dont require disks?