Spontaneous rebooting problem, THINK it's related to new AIW 9800 Pro

[computer]

Originally posted by: akugami
What kind of PSU did you order? Brand, wattage rating, model number also.

First and foremost. Return your computer to stock voltages and stock clock speeds on everything. No overclocking at all for the duration of the troubleshooting. This eliminates a part being faulty due to stress by overclocking.

Next, make sure your motherboard has the latest drivers and bios updated for that motherboard. If you're running a nForce4 based mobo, make sure you DO NOT install their IDE drivers or their firewall software. Uninstall those if you did have them.

Download the latest relevant drivers for the video card. Download and install Driver Cleaner Pro. Uninstall your video card drivers. Reboot into safe mode (push F8 during reboot). Run Driver Cleaner Pro and elminate all traces of old video card drivers. Reboot into normal desktop and re-install the video drivers.

If problem persists, unplug everything and then reseat them. Everything from power plugs to data cables (IDE, SATA, etc). If it's plugged in, pull it out and then firmly reseat it.

If problem still persists, try uninstall everything from your computer case and inspecting the motherboard and video card for physical damage and possibly bad capacitors. Try and run the computer on a static free surface outside of your case to eliminate the possibility of a grounding issue inside the case.

Finally if the problem is still there and you have an extra hard drive, or an extra partition on your hard drive, try doing a completely clean install of windows on it and booting from that partition. Install all the normal drivers you would need, like motherboard drivers and video card drivers. Keep it as simple of an install as possible. See if the problem persists.

akugami, Ok I can type a little better today.

Thanks for the reply. I covered some of this in my last post of yesterday (mobo used and PSU used). I haven't tried putting the CPU back to 2.4ghz. I guess I'd have to do that for a week or so since the shut downs rarely happen.

BTW, it's not always a reboot. The last few times it's done it, the PC freezes, no keyboard or mouse movement, then there is one "beep" that sounds like the "A-OK" beep typical of a BIOS when booting! Then the PC sort of shuts down, the monitor goes totally blank and the green LED becomes AMBER just like it does when you shut the PC off or go into some kind of stand-by mode!! Now what is really odd about this, is if I have the TV going, I CAN STILL HEAR THE TV AUDIO when it's in this shut down state!!

Latest drivers are being used for everything, except for the video card's drivers. I already checked the mobo for bad caps.

Again, this only started happening after the AIW 9800 Pro was installed. It was a sealed retail box. Most thought, as did I, this issue was due to the PSU not being powerful enough. However, that obviously is not the case now.

Since I'm on a temporary HD (while I was waiting for another replacement WD740), I'll be covering all that uninstalling/cleaning/reinstalling on the new HD. I've already put XP on it, but it's clean now, no drivers have been installed on it yet. I just don't want this to happen on the new HD and fresh XP install since when it happens, sometimes the HD gets corrupt and chkdsk is automatically run, and I don't want to this to happen on the new HD. So I'm trying to determine with any input I can get if this is OS/software related or hardware related. If the former, then no big deal. If the latter however, then I have to fix it before I get on the new HD.

 

[akugami]

Have you tried RMA'ing the card? Seriously, I'd be bummed out if my system went haywire like that.

 

[computer]

Originally posted by: akugami
Have you tried RMA'ing the card? Seriously, I'd be bummed out if my system went haywire like that.

No, but I guess it's something I should consider should this continue on the new HD and OS install.