Harddisk cause restarts?

[Clob]

My computer seems to be restarting with no specific reasons. It happens when I do "something" like start up my browser, load up a game, start up email and things like that... Is it possible that my harddrive could be causing this... I can run games for hours just fine, then start up my web brower and boom... Restart... Or going from game to game has the same result!

I am quite confident that its not my memory doing this. Any ideas?

 

[Anoobis]

Please post your system specs.

 

[Codesmith]

The hard drive wouldn't be at the top of my list of suspects.

First I would look for a software problem

1 Make sure Windows is fully patched.
2 Scan for Viruses (Avast 4 Home is nice and its free)
3 Scan of Adware (Adaware & Spybot get the job done, again free)
4 Use a firewall (Zone Alarm, again free verision works fine)
(of course you should use latest versions with latest definitions)

Then I would look at the hardware.
1 Memtest 85 overnight (need to create a boot CD or floppy)
2 Prime95 (from windows or from a boot CD)
3 Extended Drive Self Tests for all you hard drives.
4 Continuous 3dmark 2003/2005 benchmarking to give the video card a work out.
(www.ultimatebootcd.com is great a free collection of boot utilities)

Anyway I recomend that you run any of the above test that you haven't done already.

If everything still tested fine, I would probably restore the OS from a pristine backupk, or pop in an unattended install CD to automatically reinstall windows.

BTW you didn't mention if the system was previously 100% stable. If it was stable were any changes made prior to unexplained restarts?

 

[linux_0]

Your RAM, PSU or motherboard could be bad or windows may have been virused or spywared to death.

Download memtest86 http://memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

unzip it and burn it to a CD-R with isorecorder http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm make sure you have XP SP2! otherwise use the older version of isorecorder.

Boot from the memtest86 CD and let it run for 4-12 hours (maybe overnight).

You might also want to try prime95 http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm and

Knoppix http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V4.0.2CD-2005-09-23-EN.iso [700MB].


I strongly recommend you get both of these anti-virus programs:

http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/clamwin/clamwin-0.88-setup.exe

http://free.grisoft.com/softw/70free/setup/avg71free_375a703.exe

Also go to cnet and search for spybot search and destroy and adaware.

Good Luck!

 

[Clob]

Thanks... Its a fresh install of windows and I just recently ran an all-day memtest... It was doing this before the new isntall also. I guess it would be difficult to test weather the mobo was going bad?

I will run 3dmark stresttest overnight to see what happens...

2400+
A7n8x-e
BFG 6800NU OC
768ram (mixed sticks) -never ben a problem before
500w aspire
plenty of cooling...

 

[linux_0]

How many passes did you run memtest86 for?

Have you tried Prime95?

Updated your drivers?

Is your system OC'ed?

 

[pip_seeker]

When you install windows it defaults and automatic reboot for a BSOD.

So something is causing a BSOD. To get some clues shut the automatic reboot off.

IN WIN2K PRO: Start>>> settings> control panel>> system

click Advanced tab >> Startup and recovery then uncheck "Automatically Reboot" {this should be similar for WinXP}

and click ok. Now when it happens again you will see the BSOD and the error that occured. They are coded so you might have to dig into the MSFT data base to find out what the culprit is.

 

[Clob]

How many passes did you run memtest86 for?

Have you tried Prime95?

Updated your drivers?

Is your system OC'ed?

memtest, about 4 I think over 8 hours... Dont remember exactly... 0 errors

negative on Prime95

Drivers are UTD

I use speedfan to adjust the clock depending on load from 66fsb to 145fsb. The presists when speedfan is not running... So I dont think its the prob.

 

[linux_0]

Please try prime95 3dmark and or specviewperf http://www.spec.org/gpc/downloadindex.html

Disabling the automatic reboot after a BSOD should also help as suggested above!

Good Luck!

 

[Clob]

I got the BSOD now... Had somthing to do with the win32k.sys file... Gave a long error code but didnt think to write it down.

 

[linux_0]

Search for minidump.

You should find a number of minidump directories containing debug files your system wants to send to M$ after each crash.

Please look for those files and see if you can upload them somewhere or email them so I can examine them.

 

[chuckshissle]

I think its the ram also. You said you run the memtest86 on it right?

Can you give me the specs on your cpu bus/frequency/voltage,etc.

And your ram info like timings,freq..voltage, etc.

Could be a memory dump.

 

[CheezCrusadr]

I've experienced this problem 3 times now. It results from a transistor(s) in your memory chips not getting power to flip, and as a result, the file loaded into it, in your case, win32.sys, becomes unusable. There are a bunch of reasons why it could happen.
1. your MoBo isn't sending the signals properly to the ram. (not likely, you'd be experiencing other issues if it were)
2. your ram is faulty (again, not as likely, because it can stand memtest)
3. Your PSU isn't supplying enough power or the power is dirty(very likely)
Of the three times this has happened to me, upgrading my PSU has fixed it (one time I was able to keep it stable for a brief window of time by adjusting the voltage settings and . I reccommend a minimum 550w generic PSU with atleast 2 fans. try and spend as much as you're willing to on a PSU, even if it's generic. Dirty power (large fluxuations in voltage levels) can cause some nasty problems, too, very similar to what your experiencing. See if you can't find a helpful friend with a nice PSU to test it out with.

 

[pip_seeker]

better yet stay away from generic psu's. get a good one like Antec, enermax etc. THG does reviews on these all the time, pick from what they say is good. If in doubt don't use it.

power problems are like nightmares you don't want them.

Antec is all I ever get anymore because I am confident I'm getting what I am paying for.

I just bought a 400watt truepower antec for a AMD 3800+ X2 works flawless and is quieter than my last one.

 

[Clob]

I ran Prime 95 all night... It went for a good while, but the application failed with a "Send or Dont-send" error...


Ram-timings 2-3-3-6 I tryed 2.5-4-4-7 with same problem. Voltage is at 2.8

I have nothing but good reviews on Aspire PSU's... As a matter of a fact I replaced an old enermax that was faulty and this one worked great! I

Its always somthing with this machine...

 

[Clob]

BSOD error again-

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

"BUNCH OF MS MUMBO JUMBO

NDIS.SYS (somthing was wrong)

STOP 0X000000D1 (0X00000000, 0X00000002, 0X0000001, 0XF73AB837)

Windowz didnt give me that gay "send, dont send" error so I could record the info....


As of right now I use Kasperskey trail version. Its blocking a lot of attacks from the net... Mostly Lovesan and PNP exploit....

 

[kittle]

NDIS.SYS - sounds like a network card driver.

go into control panel -> Adminsitrative tools -> computer management
i forget which option... but under that there is an option that will show you resources and 'sharing'
I highly suspect your network card is sharing resources with something it shoudl not.
do you have onboard sound? or a sound card? thats mostly likely the culprit.

 

[Clob]

Audigy1 card... In the bottom slot of my mobo, nothing else in the PCI slots. Onboard sound is dissabled... I'm using the Marvel gigabit adapter on my mobo instead of the one for the chipset...

Pic of windows error after a manuel start-shutdown-restart button

 

[apache_lives]

conflicts - network access jams things up?

if it was PSU then games would crunch and a simple windows app would not.

Check and update network card drivers, switch your audigy into a diffrent pci slot and try that.

 

[linux_0]

BSOD error again-

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

"BUNCH OF MS MUMBO JUMBO

NDIS.SYS (somthing was wrong)

STOP 0X000000D1 (0X00000000, 0X00000002, 0X0000001, 0XF73AB837)

Windowz didnt give me that gay "send, dont send" error so I could record the info....


As of right now I use Kasperskey trail version. Its blocking a lot of attacks from the net... Mostly Lovesan and PNP exploit....

It might be a bad NIC driver

Here's what I found:

http://www.vladd44.com/other/irq_error.php


However your system could also have ran out of swap space (possibly due to memory leaks).

You could try increasing your swap space in the control panel.

 

[Clob]

Looks like my NIC card is sharing and IRQ with somthing... Dont know if its supposed to since those two may be related?

Ignore the USB sharing #11. I was messing with something and I changed it right back after this. It has its own IRQ like before.

 

[linux_0]

You could try disabling your FireWire if you're not using it.

In fact it is often a good idea to disable all onboard devices that you're not using like the FDC { floppy disk controller }, RS232 serial ports, the parallel port, onboard sound, onboard game port, etc.

 

[Clob]

The machine is now dead! BSOD as soon as it starts up and I cant get the windows installer to run either.

I transfered the PSU, ram, and GPU to this P4 I have and it all works perfect. The only thing I can think of is the motherboard shit-the-bead on me...

Dell 4600 i865pe chipset with AGP slot... Running my old P4 2.8 @533 (B version?) Works fine... Im going to start a new thread in mobo forums to ask some questions on how to OC this thing or get around this Dell BIOS...

So far windows ruinning great and all the drivers are fine.

 

[linux_0]

It could be XP, the HDD or the motherboard.

XP itself may be messed up.

The HDD may have developed bad sectors in a critical area or the motherboard may be toast.

Please disconnect the HDD ( s ) and try booting the 700MB Knoppix ISO

http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V4.0.2CD-2005-09-23-EN.iso

or the 50MB Damn Small Linux ISO

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html

Make sure all hard drives are disconnected before you try to boot from either CD.

PM me if you have any questions.


PS As far as I know Dell boards do not overclock well if they OC at all.

 

[Clob]

I'm running on that HD right now... No problems at all... Sorry I forgot to mention that... The only different hardware is the motherboard and CPU.. Everything else is swapped.