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Random Reboot issues (was Anyone else having random reboots with Firefox)
Carol Haynes:
I am doing a reinstall - early today (well yesterday actually) my system randomly rebooted about 15 times in 3 hours.
Enough is enough.
I am pretty sure it must be an installation problem rather than hardware as I have been running other software without any problems from outside Windows, and now I have a backup installed (of a fairly early install on this hardware when it was new) the problems seem to have disappeared even if I do multiple stress test applications on the system.
Frustrating though as I can't really afford the time or hassle at the moment.
Armando:
Wow... Reinstalling... from scratch? :(
But... if you can't fix the problem otherwise.
I feel your pain -- it's soooo time consuming when you have lot's of little customizations to take care of.
(I know some like to "reinstall", but I avoid it like plague. I remember my days with 95, 98 and NT 4.0... Reinstalling almost once a month. Now it's more once every 3 years... and more, hopefully. Thanks to images backup and other similar technologies)
Carol Haynes:
That'll teach me to archive backups properly. The trouble is I have so much stuff on my discs that there is little space to do backups and I end up with so many programs installed (many with huge amounts of data) that it is impractical to do backups with anything less than a large hard drive!
(I should add that one of the reasons I have so much crap on my hard discs is that I never delete anything - my house is like that too with every inch of floor space covered in piles of books, CD, DVDs and all sorts of other junk ...)
It shouldn't be too bad - when I set up the system from scratch as new I did a backup once I had most drivers installed and after installing and activating Windows and MS Office. So at least I don't have to go through the hassle of reactivating those.
I also have Adobe Premium CS 2 installed and I managed to deactivate the previous install so I can easily reactivate this version.
There are a load of things to reinstall (not least huge numbers of Windows/Office updates - roll on XP SP3!) and update quite a few drivers that are no out of date but at least it isn't a totally from scratch install.
Carol Haynes:
Argh ... it looks like it must be hardware!!
I left the machine running last night when I went to bed - all it was doing was a 5 part CHKDSK on two large external USB drives and when I came down this morning the damn thing had rebooted.
I could really do without the lets test it for a week with only one extra bit of kit approach. The trouble is that the random reboots are just that - I can have 10 in one day and then none for a week so it is really difficult to pin down what exactly is going on.
Anyone any suggestions for a quicker way to identify the source of the problem?
* I have done complete disc scans to check they are not the problem and they seem fine. Given that the SATA and ATA drives in my system work properly it is unlikely to be the disk controller.
* I have run extended MEMTEST+ sessions on the RAM without any problems showing up.
* There are no graphics glitches that I am aware of (running 2 x NVidia 7300 cards at standard clock rates in SLi mode).
* There are no sound or video glitches so I'd guess the Audigy2 car I have installed is OK (the onboard sound is disabled).
* I have been having glitches with my USB Wifi adapter dropping connection or disabling itself so that is one suspect - or maybe the USB interface on the mobo - but I have other devices plugged into the same onboard 'hub' without problems occurring.
* I have an external 400Gb Seagate USB2 drive which I have been using heavily for creating DVD ISO files, storing and manipulating video files with no problems but running CHKDSK seems to be causing an issue (each time I run it the computer reboots at the moment - about the only consistent effect). Howevere if I run the usual 3 part CHDKSK no error show up and running CHKDSK from a boot CD doesn't seem to cause an issue ???
* I have a good quality power supply with plenty of power - but when it does reboot it is like pressing the reset button on the case - could it be a PSU glitch? How can I tell.
* There are various other USB addons that seem to work without problems.
* For me the prime suspect is the USB Wifi adapter that keeps playing sill buggers. The router is rock solid, bever disconnects and has no problems with two other computers in the house (one using a Wifi PCI card, the other an ethernet cable to the router). Unfortunately the location of the computer couldn't be worse located for trying out a wired connect and pulling the USB adapter plug and anyway I haven't got enough ethernet cable to reach. To move the computer is like death by a thousand cables!
Carol Haynes:
Update: OK how does this sound ...
I used Ultimate Boot CD to run various stress tests outside windows (CPU, a variety of memory tests, hard disk diagnostic test). The only problem I encountered was that a number of these tools don't like USB keyboards!
Then I restored the backup I made of my 'faulty' system and pulled the wireless USB adapter and started running stress tests in Windows. I had the following running simultaneously for an hour and didn't get a single error or problem of any kind:
* NVidia's nTune stability test (includes CPU, Graphics, Memory stressing)
* MagicISO hosting a DVD image - played through a desktop app (so video and hard disc IO)
* Windows Media Player playing a U2 album
* Creative MediaPlayer playing another album
* iTunes playing video through QuickTime (a resource hog even under normal circumstances)
* Two different monitoring tools for CPU/Memory loads and temperatures.
Has my system got a problem if it can take that lot hammering away for an hour ?
I have plugged my USB wifi adapter in again but this time via a front access USB socket (rather than a back panel socket) - seems fine now.
Out of curiosity ... the USB adapter has a very short chord (it is really designed as a laptop adapter) and when plugged into the back of my tower has to sit on the floor or on top of the case (right above the PSU). I don't think there should be any radio interference between the PSU and adapter (as the PSU should be well shielded) but could this be an issue that could cause a malfunction that may hard reset my system ?? Anyone got any opinion??
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