New Windows 7 PC rebooting after being left alone for an hour+

[Pluto1618]

I need some help. I just bought a custom built PC for my wife last month from NCIX. I chose all the components--with help from members of this community--and had it built by NCIX. Overall, it's working great, but there is one disturbing problem that has come up. I definitely need some suggestions to deal with it!

If we leave the PC alone for a while, perhaps an hour or more, my wife will come back and find a Windows 7 message that essentially states that the machine has had a Blue Screen of Death and has rebooted itself. This has happened numerous times--it isn't just a one-off glitch.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be going on here? She's understandably upset.

BTW, we only bought the PC itself, no monitor or printer or mouse or keyboard. She is using an HP vp17 monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse from a previous PC.

Here are the components of the machine:
SKU Description Qty
1. 33030 Cooler Master Elite 335 Black ATX Mid Tower Case 4X5.25 1X3.25 6X3.25INT Front USB Audio No PSU 1

2. 41337 Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 AM3 LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 120MM 1

3. 45275 Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Edition 64BIT DVD OEM 1

4. 49591 Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA2 3Gbps 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM 2

6. 49597 ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24X SATA DVD Writer OEM Black 1

7. 52175 Seasonic M12II 520W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX PFC 80+ Bronze Modular Connectors 6PIN PCI-E 120MM Fan 1

8. 54752 OCZ Vertex 2 Extended 90GB 2.5IN SATA2 Sandforce SF1200 Solid State Disk Flash Drive 1

9. 55585 ASUS Radeon HD 5450 Silent 1GB DDR3 64BIT PCI-E DVI-I HDMI HDCP Passive Low Profile Video Card 1

10. 56330 ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 Channel PCI Sound Card 24BIT Dolby Digital DTS 105DB SNR W/ Headphone AMP 1

11. 57079 Corsair CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9 Vengeance 4GB 1X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 Memory 4

15. 57960 Intel Core i7 2600K Quad Core Unlocked Hyperthreading Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Sandy Bridge 8MB 1

16. 59316 ASUS Sabertooth P67 P67 LGA1155 DDR3 2PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 1PCI Sandy Bridge B3 Motherboard 1

 

[jawnTEM]

Hi! jawnTEM here.

Check in your bios for the listed voltage, as I suspect that this is your culprit. You are using DDR3 1600 @ 1.5v; however, your CPU requires DDR1333 @ 1.5V. While your MB is rated for higher Ram, the CPU is your limiter, which limits the memory to 1333 specs. I believe that by using the 1600 your bios auto overclocks from the 1333 standard and ups the voltage from 1.5V, which is probably throwing everything out of spec. This can lead to an erratic or unstable system.

See if you can manually lock the voltage @1.5, otherwise I would suggest that you get some 1333 and see if that helps.

 

[Supermuncher85]

First thing I would do is deactivate windows automatic reboot on blue screen to actually see what the error message says. I would imagine, since it is after an hour, that it has something to do with a standby problem. Depending on the settings, it might be attempting to power down certain components which cannot be reinitialized or that the ram is faulty. I would first try turn off shutdown on error and the change the power profile to desktop/highpower and see if that fixes it.

After that I would most definitely run a memdiagnostic.

 

[Pluto1618]

Thanks very much for the post.

I, too, think that it has something to do with attempting to put something to sleep. Last night we tried changing the monitor to "Never' be powered down. And she left the PC on all night without it crashing.

What type of memory diagnostics do you recommend running? I'm not familiar with Windows 7--is there anything of the sort that comes built-in to Win7?

Thanks again!

 

[Supermuncher85]

Your bios should actually have a memory diagnostic tool included.

 

[Pluto1618]

OK, thanks. I'll look for it.