Computer Randomly Rebooting, Overclocking Failed when not even Overclocking

Leinahtan

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May 20, 2009
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I have a computer that is randomly rebooting. Sometimes it will reboot right as I get to the Windows Login, other times it will reboot after like 30 minutes while in Windows. It may have rebooted even during its reboot (I don't remember each reboot, so many). Each time on reboot, it appears the computer is prompting me to go to the bios, saying "Overclocking Failed". However, I have never overclocked this computer since I have no need to do so (its used for work). I have tried doing the F5 -> Default Settings -> Save (even when it says nothing changed), but that has not fixed the problem long term (it only lets me get to windows.. for a short time).

Reboot times appear to be longer, flickering occurs on reboot as well which was not noticeable previously. I can hear "clicking" when it reboots, as if power was cut off hard via a reset button(?).

The MB in question is an Asus x99 Sabertooth.

Right now, the computer in question is doing a memtest 86x. If it does not reboot during this test, I can hopefully rule out the Memory part not going bad. Any insight into this weird error that came out of nowhere would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to solve this for my Dad, since it is his computer that I built for him. I can't work on the computer directly since I am not even in the same state as him. However, any help would be greatly appreciated by both of us.
 

jeremymau

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Dec 31, 2007
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Sounds like you have some major voltage problems going on. Do you have a quality power supply? Have you updated your bios? Have you paid attention to your voltages and temperatures? If not, download HWMonitor and see what's going on. You said you have never overclocked your cpu, but it's possible that your power supply is going bad and the voltage is much higher than what it should be, which is causing your bios to freak out.
 

Leinahtan

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I did update the Bios maybe a month or two ago. It is odd for this to suddenly go completely crazy out of nowhere though. I would have suspected this problem to occur sooner after the Bios update. I will try to update the BIOS when I can to the newest version (I did check to see if there was a new one). If I remember correctly, the BIOS is currently v3004 while the newest is 3101.

So lets assume the BIOS is bad. Will updating it to the newest one overwrite all prior BIOS settings/bugs or should I somehow blank it (is that possible?) and then directly upgrade to 3101? How would I go about downgrading it? Same as upgrading it?

If we find out the BIOS is not the problem, you suspect maybe its a bad setting that had gone bad over time? How does that happen? Or maybe the power supply has gone bad? If I recall, I think the PSU is a 750 or 850 EVGA Platinum PSU. I picked the best parts to avoid a situation like this :(

Could the problem be rooted in Graphics card or Memory? The memory test is still underway and has not rebooted to my knowledge for the past few hours, which is a good sign there. Let me know your thoughts based on what I said so far. Thank you for your input so far.
 

jeremymau

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If your bios was bad, most likely your computer wouldn't start at all. (most modern motherboard also have dual bioses just in case one goes bad) I don't know which method you use to update your bios, but sometimes the manufacturers provide a utility with the driver disc and applications that lets you update from within windows. While that will work fine, sometimes that utility will not retrieve the newest bios. So, check the maufacturer's website to see if they have anything new available.



If you find that the bios is actually bad, then you would have to contact the maker of the motherboard and see which warranty options you have. In fact, if you still have a warranty now, I would get an RMA and send the board to them, most companies are pretty good about that. There is no use pulling your hair out when you have a warranty.

For now, the biggest clues to a bad board or cpu would be to watch the temperatures and voltages. If a motherboard is getting too much voltage to the northbridge, southbridge, vrams and cpu that can cause it to overheat very fast. If you are using a cheap or defective powersupply that could very well be the source of the problem, but at the same time if your power supply is bad the damage might already be done and it's too late.

When I troubleshoot a computer with problems like your's, I always strip it down completely, I pull all of the drives, ram, video card (if it has built in video) and see which component could be causing the problems. Start with one stick of ram, run the computer for a fair amount of time, see if it crashes, reboots or locks up, if good, add another stick of ram, repeat. If all ram is fine, add the video card, follow the same procedure. See if it reboots, freezes or crashes. Pretty much anything and everything in the computer should be added one piece at a time, trying to get it to show it's symptoms.

Now, it's also very possible that your hard drive is bad. You said you heard clicking. If you can boot into windows long enough, install a program called Hard Disk Sentinel (they want you to buy it, but you can use it a demo), it's a program that will quickly check the life on your hard drive. (it reads the S.M.A.R.T.) information and displays it. Just run a quick test which will only take a minute or two. If it finds that your drive is going bad, I would take that into account for your troubles. A bad hard drive can hit a bad section of data and cause it to blue screen, freeze or reboot. I have had it happen to me many times over the last 20 years.


To answer your last question, yes it's very well possible that your video card is defective, especially if it's been covered in dust and has overheated, that can fry a card quick and or weaken the solder balls on the gpu itself causing a cold solder joint. Typically when a video card is going bad it will display artifacts when playing games (blocks, lines, tears in images etc.) ram rarely goes bad, but it can go bad if it's been overclocked for too long, causing the ram chips to have sector damage.



Computers can be a pain the butt sometimes, you can spend a fortune on components that are supposed to be the best, fastest and most reliable, then one day out of the blue they can die on you.




 

Leinahtan

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Well, it seems to have gotten worse. It rebooted itself after being in MemTest for a few hours - and then went into a reboot loop during bootup. It may not be possible to update the Bios at this point since it may reboot itself while in the Bios too. I will be calling up ASUS later this week when I have time to discuss the problem, the potential solution, and the fallback should it reboot while updating the BIOS (which I assume will brick the computer if that happens).
 

Leinahtan

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We are suspecting that maybe something is overheating, which is odd since all the fans are running.

The reason for this is simple: if we come back to the computer and turn it on after it has been off for a while, it doesn't seem to start rebooting like until a bit later. However, once it starts rebooting, it keeps rebooting until you turn it off and leave it alone.

I think we managed to update the bios, but it still is rebooting just in case you were wondering. Please let me know what you think.