Random Reboot on a P4B

[Victor]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Hello,

I've got a P4B about 1.5 years old. It works quiet well...yet in the
past two weeks it will randomly reboot without any notice. Also, in
the past few months it will not shutdown, it restarts instead (was
bothered but not concerned).

When it is in the process of booting, it has also rebooted, even
before it has reached the part where win2000 starts loading.

Otherwise, no lock ups or otherwise issues.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I've cleaned the machine completely.

One suspicion I have is running two maxtor drives master/slave on the
primary IDE drive, that are different models. One is ATA/100 and the
other is ATA/133 both maxtor.

I've replaced the ide cable with a new one. Updated the bios also,
reset the bios. No change.

Thanks in advance.

Victor

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

2 weeks you say. Got anti-virus software running? Do you have the latest
flavour of patches to Explorer if you use it.
Your problem sounds suspiciously like some of the viruses that are currently
popular.
Win 2K is not a particularly friendly OS. If you have the chance I would go
to XP it is a lot more stable and less error prone though it still gets
itself in a knot occasionally. If you have to stick with W2K try repairing
it observing all the good things like backing up critical data etc.
My experience with Microsoft is that reloading the software seems to cure
most of the problems till the next time
"Victor" <none@internet.net> wrote in message
news:ikvbb0hoacgkg3s9hrt2ath8sa2pubu94c@4ax.com...
> Hello,
>
> I've got a P4B about 1.5 years old. It works quiet well...yet in the
> past two weeks it will randomly reboot without any notice. Also, in
> the past few months it will not shutdown, it restarts instead (was
> bothered but not concerned).
>
> When it is in the process of booting, it has also rebooted, even
> before it has reached the part where win2000 starts loading.
>
> Otherwise, no lock ups or otherwise issues.
>
> Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
>
> I've cleaned the machine completely.
>
> One suspicion I have is running two maxtor drives master/slave on the
> primary IDE drive, that are different models. One is ATA/100 and the
> other is ATA/133 both maxtor.
>
> I've replaced the ide cable with a new one. Updated the bios also,
> reset the bios. No change.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Victor
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

On Thu, 27 May 2004 10:01:07 -0500, Victor wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've got a P4B about 1.5 years old. It works quiet well...yet in the
> past two weeks it will randomly reboot without any notice. Also, in the
> past few months it will not shutdown, it restarts instead (was bothered
> but not concerned).
>
> When it is in the process of booting, it has also rebooted, even before
> it has reached the part where win2000 starts loading.
>
> Otherwise, no lock ups or otherwise issues.
>
> Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
>
> I've cleaned the machine completely.
>
> One suspicion I have is running two maxtor drives master/slave on the
> primary IDE drive, that are different models. One is ATA/100 and the
> other is ATA/133 both maxtor.
>
> I've replaced the ide cable with a new one. Updated the bios also, reset
> the bios. No change.

The problem could be from a number of sources, software or hardware.
Hardware connectors, such as the CPU socket, DIMM slots, or AGP slots
could be dirty or making poor contact. It'd be worth a quick inspection
of the motherboard capacitors (as well as the video card), looking for
"bulging" caps or leaky brown ooze underneith them. To rule out hardware
faults, try the following:

First - Get memtest86, and run it to ensure the memory is stable. Let it
loop for over an hour as well. If you have failures, there is some sort
of fault in the memory system. Try testing individual sticks after a
failure to identify which is the problem.

Next - Get CPUBurn4, and let it run for over an hour. If it fails (or
reboots), the problem may be with the motherboard/CPU/memory/etc. It will
not be so easy to isolate the source of this fault. Here you might
substitute Prime95 or Seti, or run them in series/tandem.

Run some sort of video intensive test/loop. 3dmark provides some good
tests, and I like to run timedemo loops from Quake3 (but any similar game
like Unreal/etc will do). Failures will implicate a number of sources
including motherboard/CPU/memory, and particularly the video card.

If all the above pass, then I'd be suspicious of a software/driver issue.
I've had these before, but not so much with win2000...

--
We HAVE been at war with Iraq for 13 years now, bombing their
country on at least a weekly basis.
"U.S.-led sanctions have killed over a million Iraqi citizens,
according to UN studies" - James Jennings
3,000+ innocent Iraqi civilian casualties can't be "wrong"...

 

[Victor]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Had the same thought of a virus. I'm running the current engine and
dat files for mcafee.

Unfortunately, Twice when it has rebooted by itself, it rebooted
before the os started loading...so I'm sure it is a hardware problem

Thanks for the advice.

Victor




On Thu, 27 May 2004 19:20:31 -0400, "notritenoteri"
<coldasfire@hades.com> wrote:

>2 weeks you say. Got anti-virus software running? Do you have the latest
>flavour of patches to Explorer if you use it.
>Your problem sounds suspiciously like some of the viruses that are currently
>popular.
>Win 2K is not a particularly friendly OS. If you have the chance I would go
>to XP it is a lot more stable and less error prone though it still gets
>itself in a knot occasionally. If you have to stick with W2K try repairing
>it observing all the good things like backing up critical data etc.
>My experience with Microsoft is that reloading the software seems to cure
>most of the problems till the next time
>"Victor" <none@internet.net> wrote in message
>news:ikvbb0hoacgkg3s9hrt2ath8sa2pubu94c@4ax.com...
>> Hello,
>>
>> I've got a P4B about 1.5 years old. It works quiet well...yet in the
>> past two weeks it will randomly reboot without any notice. Also, in
>> the past few months it will not shutdown, it restarts instead (was
>> bothered but not concerned).
>>
>> When it is in the process of booting, it has also rebooted, even
>> before it has reached the part where win2000 starts loading.
>>
>> Otherwise, no lock ups or otherwise issues.
>>
>> Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
>>
>> I've cleaned the machine completely.
>>
>> One suspicion I have is running two maxtor drives master/slave on the
>> primary IDE drive, that are different models. One is ATA/100 and the
>> other is ATA/133 both maxtor.
>>
>> I've replaced the ide cable with a new one. Updated the bios also,
>> reset the bios. No change.
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Victor
>>
>>
>>
>

 

[Paul]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

In article <hr6db0tiqdh39j560blomi8d1pgbk4gklh@4ax.com>, none@internet.net
wrote:

> Had the same thought of a virus. I'm running the current engine and
> dat files for mcafee.
>
> Unfortunately, Twice when it has rebooted by itself, it rebooted
> before the os started loading...so I'm sure it is a hardware problem
>
> Thanks for the advice.
>
> Victor
>
>

Do you have a spare power supply handy ? Give it a try.
Power supply failures are a common cause of flaky behavior.

Paul

 

[Victor]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

I've disconnected a new drive and took out a new board I had installed
and the machine so far is stable for the last two days...

Paul, a very good idea. I'll be buying a new power supply...believe
this may be the culprit. The machine runs too good for a serious
problem with the motherboard to exist.

Thanks!

Victor



On Fri, 28 May 2004 09:21:40 -0500, nospam@needed.com (Paul) wrote:

>In article <hr6db0tiqdh39j560blomi8d1pgbk4gklh@4ax.com>, none@internet.net
>wrote:
>
>> Had the same thought of a virus. I'm running the current engine and
>> dat files for mcafee.
>>
>> Unfortunately, Twice when it has rebooted by itself, it rebooted
>> before the os started loading...so I'm sure it is a hardware problem
>>
>> Thanks for the advice.
>>
>> Victor
>>
>>
>
>Do you have a spare power supply handy ? Give it a try.
>Power supply failures are a common cause of flaky behavior.
>
> Paul

 

[Victor]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

For those interested:

I've replaced the power supply and the computer has been stable and
working well and even shutsdown properly now.

I can only imagine the addition of usb cam, hard drive, usb printer
will rob a lot of power from the power supply.

Thanks for the suggestions and help.

Victor