PC randomly restarts by itself.

[Berna]

Hey there. I apologize if this thread isn't in the right section, but I didn't know where else to place it.


Alright so, lately I've been getting really frequent PC restarts. Sometimes it's blue screen, other times the screen just freezes with a constant sound and I'm forced to restart it.

This has been happening shortly after I bought my PC, around 5-6 months. However, back then it seemed it only happened while playing games, certain games actually. So I reported this problem to the store, they asked me if I had my PC near a wood table or something of the sort, I said yes, and they said that could be the reason because of some whatthefuck reason I can't recall. So I took the PC to another place, and also replaced the CPU cooler meantime but turns out it's still happening. But now it's not only in games, it's anytime, I don't know what to do anymore.

I feel it's just pointless to contact the store again because they obviously don't know what's the problem either, hence why they told me that excuse.


PC specs:

Motherboard: ASUS M4A88T-M USB/3
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965BE 3.4ghz (Artic Freezer 13 CO cooler)
GPU: ASUS Radeon HD 6850
RAM: AMD Performance Edition 4GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200rpm

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.



Thanks in advance.

 

[Engima]

I don't understand the wood table reason at all. Can you run memtest86 to see if the RAM is good? Can you also tell what temps are at idle and load?

 

[Raiddinn]

Whoever said the thing about the wood table had nfi what they were talking about. My PC is completely enclosed in wood on the top, bottom, and both sides and it works just fine. Indeed, I would estimate that like 90% of all PCs are within 1 foot of some kind of wood.

Engima's tests are going to be helpful (though I would use Memtest86+ instead of the no plus version).

Also, what PSU do you have and what case do you have? Those two things hugely factor into the sorts of problems you might be having.

 

[Berna]

My PSU is a Corsair CX-500W, and the case is a Nox Cyclops. I didn't test RAM with memtest86 because I couldn't understand how to do it. I tested it with the program that comes with Windows instead, and no problems were found.

About the temperatures - I also forgot to mention, they're all good. On the CPU I always get something around 35ºC and 38ºC on idlle, and never goes higher than 41ºC on gaming. The GPU has around 40ºC on idle and never goes higher than 60ºC while gaming.

 

[Raiddinn]

The Nox Cyclops is a top mount PSU case, which does worry me.

The Windows RAM tester doesn't work right, because Windows has to reserve a large block of RAM for the OS and it can't run hardware diagnostics on that portion of the RAM. If that portion contains some sort of error, then the RAM test in Windows would never be able to find that out.

MemTest86+ works before the OS gets loaded, so only a very tiny amount of RAM needs to be reserved for it to load itself rather than the tremendous block that Windows uses. That basically means you get to test almost all of each chip.

However, that being said, MemTest86+ is also flawed in that it is a 32 bit program (or it was in the last version I downloaded) which means it can only test a maximum of 4GBs of RAM at once, which means that's all you can have installed when you run the test if you want conclusive results.

In your case it really doesn't matter, because all you have is 4GB, but for people that have, say, 2x 4GB sticks for a total of 8 then those people have to test each stick individually with the other one not physically installed if they want to have reliable results.

As for you not being able to get it working, you have to download the ISO file off a website and then use a program that will deconstruct it and write the contents to a CD. If you just copy the whole file to a CD with the built in windows cut and paste function then it won't do anything.

Many programs are out there and are free which can do this, but afaik nothing that comes installed with Windows is capable of it.

Something like ImgBurn should be free and able to do the trick. Inside such a program there should be an option that looks like "ISO --> CD" which is what to use.

Temperatures - Those temperatures don't sound problematic to me. If the program you are using to measure them is reliable, the problems are probably elsewhere.

Do you have another computer around that you can borrow parts from to test with? Or perhaps someone you know might let you borrow some of their parts to test with?

 

[Berna]

Alright, I tested it and no problems were found aswell. However, I don't know if I did it correctly as I only did 1 "pass", and then quit.

And unfortunately no, I cannot get PC parts anywhere.


Also, an update: It restarted like 3 more times yesterday, but it's not blue screen or freezing anymore, now it just simply restarts.

I really need help on this one, thanks so far though.

 

[Raiddinn]

Do more passes. Each pass tests a different type of error. Its common for errors to show up as late as the 4th or 5th pass and uncommonly they show up as late as the 7th pass.

Usually if you can get into the 8th pass you can be 99% sure its good, so I would try that.

 

[Berna]

Alright, I'll do it then, thanks for the info. Just a question - if I leave the computer and the test is completed meanwhile, does it skip the results or stays there until I press a key or something? Cause I'm gonna watch some TV meantime and might get distracted a bit.

 

[Raiddinn]

It is fine if you go watch TV and check back on it every hour or so.

I think if you get errors in the test that it won't skip past the results so you won't see it.

I am not 100% on that, so do try to check it every hour or 2.

 

[Berna]

Alright, I did 9 passes in 8 hours straight and no errors were found... Damn. Surprisingly, it hasn't restarted since then.

Any other suggestions tho?

 

[Raiddinn]

Its kinda hard to troubleshoot an intermittent problem, especially if it quits happening completely when you are trying to fix it.

Restarting during gaming playing, especially if its during certain games only, is usually either a driver problem or a case problem. That is about all I can tell you.

Pay attention to what is going on the next time it freezes if you can. I have been around here a long time, chances are good if it takes a while for the problem to reoccur I will still be around here when it does happen.