Random restarts on my homebuilt

[ajvessey]

Hey everyone, I built a comp for the first time last summer, and it's been working about 95% perfect. The only real problem I've encountered so far is the occasional random restart. When I'm playing a game (usually, it doesn't happen during idle time, so I think it's related to CPU usage) the comp just flips to a black screen while the actual comp itself stays on. The lights are green, and sometimes it makes noise like it's rebooting, but usually it stays at a blackscreen until I physically turn it off and back on. The specs of the comp are:

Athlon 64 3200+ (venice core I believe) overclocked to 2.4ghz
1024 memory (not sure of the brand, can find it if I need to, but it's 2x512)
Radeon X800XL gpu
Epox 9npa+ mobo
500w blue PSU (it was a nice one when I bought it)
3 HD's, 60gig, 30gig and a new 250gig.

I don't think it's temperature related, as the system seems pretty stable. Under a full load while running Prime 95, the CPU maxes out at 52 C, and that's in my non-air conditioned apartment, so that's about the max it will ever get. The system runs even cooler than that, never breaking 45 C. The HD temps are good as well, as reported by speedfan.

I was hoping someone here could help me figure out what's causing this, as I'm kind of at a loss right now. I have the newest gpu drivers and extra fans with good airflow, so I don't know what it could be. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Plekto]

My guess would be either one of two things:

1ower supply goes south under a really heavy load. Those older drives, btw, are huge energy guzzlers for their palttry space.

2:Motherboard might not be delivering enough juice to the video card as it gets older. I have an 850XT and it is a brutal load on the system. So much so that I opted for a Zalman cooler for it - because it never goes into high-speed mode with the fan and keeps the noise as well as the power useage down.

But I only have two HDs and two case fans(did some mods), so a 430W Antec power supply works fine for now.

My guess would be the drives - they spin up and down and likely push it JUST enough when the power supply is hot to shut it down. A nice WD 250Gig drive for $79 is a good choice.

 

[badge]

Hey everyone, I built a comp for the first time last summer, and it's been working about 95% perfect. The only real problem I've encountered so far is the occasional random restart. When I'm playing a game (usually, it doesn't happen during idle time, so I think it's related to CPU usage) the comp just flips to a black screen while the actual comp itself stays on. The lights are green, and sometimes it makes noise like it's rebooting, but usually it stays at a blackscreen until I physically turn it off and back on. The specs of the comp are:

Athlon 64 3200+ (venice core I believe) overclocked to 2.4ghz
1024 memory (not sure of the brand, can find it if I need to, but it's 2x512)
Radeon X800XL gpu
Epox 9npa+ mobo
500w blue PSU (it was a nice one when I bought it)
3 HD's, 60gig, 30gig and a new 250gig.

I don't think it's temperature related, as the system seems pretty stable. Under a full load while running Prime 95, the CPU maxes out at 52 C, and that's in my non-air conditioned apartment, so that's about the max it will ever get. The system runs even cooler than that, never breaking 45 C. The HD temps are good as well, as reported by speedfan.

I was hoping someone here could help me figure out what's causing this, as I'm kind of at a loss right now. I have the newest gpu drivers and extra fans with good airflow, so I don't know what it could be. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

I would say your overclock's stability is limited by your MB. A couple of hourse ago I took my AMD 64 3700 2.4 processor out of my ASUS Deluxe socket 754 board. I swapped the stronger 3700 processor out and put in my EPOX 754 SLI board. Just as I thought, the EPOX board, although it has great O'cing features, allows me only near a 200 mhz. O'clock with a truckload of stability issues. I just backed it down when the instability started. The Asus board easily clocked to 200 mhz Overclock.

I like the Epox board, but the ASUS board is better. I believe if you put your processor in more stabilty adhering board you would see different results. BTW, I have found AMD 64 socket 754 chips to be poor overclockers generally. A 200 to 300 mhz. overclock is good with them. I own four I use every day currently.

 

[badge]

Hey everyone, I built a comp for the first time last summer, and it's been working about 95% perfect. The only real problem I've encountered so far is the occasional random restart. When I'm playing a game (usually, it doesn't happen during idle time, so I think it's related to CPU usage) the comp just flips to a black screen while the actual comp itself stays on. The lights are green, and sometimes it makes noise like it's rebooting, but usually it stays at a blackscreen until I physically turn it off and back on. The specs of the comp are:

Athlon 64 3200+ (venice core I believe) overclocked to 2.4ghz
1024 memory (not sure of the brand, can find it if I need to, but it's 2x512)
Radeon X800XL gpu
Epox 9npa+ mobo
500w blue PSU (it was a nice one when I bought it)
3 HD's, 60gig, 30gig and a new 250gig.

I don't think it's temperature related, as the system seems pretty stable. Under a full load while running Prime 95, the CPU maxes out at 52 C, and that's in my non-air conditioned apartment, so that's about the max it will ever get. The system runs even cooler than that, never breaking 45 C. The HD temps are good as well, as reported by speedfan.

I was hoping someone here could help me figure out what's causing this, as I'm kind of at a loss right now. I have the newest gpu drivers and extra fans with good airflow, so I don't know what it could be. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks!

I would say your overclock's stability is limited by your MB. A couple of hours ago I took my AMD 64 3700 2.4 processor out of my ASUS Deluxe socket 754 board. I swapped the stronger 3700 processor out and put it in my EPOX 754 SLI board. Just as I thought, the EPOX board, although it has great O'cing features, allows me only near a 200 mhz. O'clock with a truckload of stability issues. I just backed it down when the instability started. The Asus board easily clocked to a 200 mhz overclock earlier in the day with very same processor.

I like the Epox board, but the ASUS board is better. I believe if you put your processor in more stabilty adhering board you would see different results. BTW, I have found AMD 64 socket 754 chips to be poor overclockers generally. A 200 to 300 mhz. overclock is good with them. I own four I use every day currently.

 

[ajvessey]

Good deal, thanks! I jsut bought a new WD Caviar se 250gig drive because I was running out of space. I wasn't sure what to do about the old ones so I kept them in, but now that I know it might be a problem I'll transfer the stuff over onto the new one and get one of the old ones out of there. Thanks for the help!

Also, I forgot to mention, it's a socket 939 mobo and everyone assured me I'd be able to get upwards of 400mhz via overclocking as long as I could cool it well enough. I'll probably try to ratchet it down 100 mhz or so and see if that helps though, as is it definitely could be causing some instability.

If it helps at all, the PSU I have is:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104934
it was suggested I invest in a solid PSU to avoid any sort of comlications, so I hope it's working well enough.

 

[waylander]

Ya that psu should definitely be ok.

Have you tried relaxing the timings of your ram? Regardless of what else it may end up being I almost always check my ram first, especially on a OC'ed machine.

 

[sunangel]

That broad had some really big feet.
Made me cringe. 8O

 

[master9716]

Most of the time its the motherboards Chip overheating if it does not have a fan . or when ur using an nvidia card with an ati chipset ..Random restarts are caused by the following



Old power Supply
Bad memory - try using 1 at a time.
over heating chipset -only when it doesnt come with a fan-


Remember that the video card should be powered alone and no other accesories like cd roms or hardrives should be attached to the same power line.