Sorry, but I must reboot now

[pjr44114]

I brought this problem up on another thread titled "Here we go again," but since a new symptom has appeared it warranted a new thread. Simply put:

For about a week, my computer had been locking up, frozen cursor, anywhere: on desktop, in a word processor, in a text file, text game, high level graphics game, web browser, e-mail, just freezing. It started to freeze after several hours. Now it's freezing much more frequently, as quick as 10 minutes or less sometimes. Sometimes I'll be able to use it for an hour, then I shut it down. Occasionally, it will not boot back up unless I shut it down and return one or two hours later.

The new symptom: It has rebooted itself about three times in the past two days, rather than freezing. This is scary because I had another computer about two years ago that used to reboot itself and I never quite could pin down why.

In addition to any suggestions, here are a couple of questions:

1. Given that the computer is freezing and occasionally rebooting, in your experience have these symptoms indicated a software or hardware issue? Particularly the rebooting what do you think? Have you seem this problem because of mobo, graphics card, CPU?

2. A related question: any suggestions on cooling or CPU/graphics fans would be appreciated. I've been looking at a few such as a fan that takes up a PCI slot and cools the graphics card. Are these useful? Or possibly a different CPU fan.

Here are the spex

1.9 GHz
60 MB Seagate HD
DVD drive
CD-RW drive (Plextor)
GeForce 3 Ti 500 (PNY)
Soundblaster Live 5.1
ethernet card, broadband connection
Intel DBG 850
RDRAM (don't laugh) 2 sticks of 128 MB (Samsung, I think, hard to read the writing)

Many thanks
pjr

 

[KhoiFather]

Try booting it up WITHOUT the CD-Roms, Sound Card, and only one stick of the rdram. See if it still reboots by itself. Your mobo may not like the rdram or u're cpu isn't getting enough cooling.

 

[fell8]

Don't forget the PS. One of the most common and least suspected culprits.

 

[sniperruff]

and what OS are you running?

 

[cow123]

Originally posted by: KhoiFather
Try booting it up WITHOUT the CD-Roms, Sound Card, and only one stick of the rdram. See if it still reboots by itself. Your mobo may not like the rdram or u're cpu isn't getting enough cooling.

remember 16bit RDRAM requires paired modules 😛

 

[tweeve]

PCI fans are nice i have a few. The only problem with them is that they can stop working due to dust. If you have a dusty computer or dust is a problem i dont recomend them. they can make a nice diffrence in the temp of the computer.

 

[pjr44114]

The OS is Windows XP home. I failed to mention that this computer worked with no problems with the same config for 18 months.

It appears most of the replies are leaning toward hardware. Where to start though. What's the most logical step at eliminating things. Someone did suggest disconnecting the drives and soundcard, but why only using one stick of the memory.

The memory is paired two 128 MB sticks of PC800 45ns, not sure if that is 16- or 32-bit though.

pjr