Ok I believe it is hardware related, that is why I'm posting this here. Yesterday I played Nhl 2003, the first game I played went fine, but the system rebooted itself during the second one, I left it like that. Later on, I installed the ud agent, and the system rebooted itself again while the agent was running, so I uninstalled it. Today, I decided to play a little hockey game, but the system rebooted itself again. So, thinking it was OS related, I decided to delete both partitions, but wanted to back up some files on cds so I burned one cd, all went fine, but the system rebooted 3 times while burning the 2nd cd, scrapping 3 cds in the process. I said F _ _ _ it ! I deleted both partitions and recreated them. I then procedeed with an XP Pro install from scratch. I formatted the C: to ntfs using the cd, all went fine. Then setup copied files, all went fine. But the system rebooted itself while installing devices (after setting up the language etc) So I deleted the partitions etc, again. It rebooted again but while copying the setup files. I don't believe it is software related because those reboots happened when absolutely nothing, zip, none was on he hdd. This is odd because it reboots at random times. At one time, during the process of installation, I heard beeps from the board telling me the temperature has hit the boundary I set in the BIOS. But the temperature has never hit the "shut down temp", so I believe this is not a heat problem. I am using the stock heatsink/fan that came with the retail cpu. I have no case fans whatsoever, only the one integrated to my ps. I am open to any opinions.
Try going to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Startup & Recovery. Uncheck automatically restart and check write an event to system log. If the system has a problem again it should blue screen rather than just reboot. Restart the system & if you can post the log files error message here and I'll look into what's causing it.
Too late for that as I deleted the partition. I changed my case and added a case fan : no change, although the cpu temp is down 3-4 degrees. It froze a couple of times until I was able to copy all the setup files, now I'm in the setup itself but it seems that it reboots systematically when "registering components" (it did that 2 times in a row). I just turned it off, I'll cool myself off and see what happens later. Right now I just wanna :crash: and :gun: and :guns: and :sniper: my system. (yes, I like smilies)
Ok, after cooling off, I went in the BIOS and loaded the optimized default settings. I change a couple of them : enabled agp fastwrite, agp 1 ws read & write, enabled pnp os installed, enabled abs II, warn temp, shut down temp and fan shut down. basically, settings that are irrelevant to my problem. I succeeded in installing xp, although I'm not really confident because of the amount of errors that occured during the install, but the fact that it starts over whenever something goes wrong still makes me believe it will be fine (actually I have mixed feelings :swt: ). I will however disable the automatic restart as you suggested and post the event log if something happens.
I'm not sure, but the memory might be going bad or the slot it's in could be going out. Try it in one of the other slots and see if that fixes anything. Also, if you can test it in another system that may help. But yeah, keep an eye on that event log---which I was gonna suggest to you as well.
I've heard of it, but I don't think I've used it so I can't comment on quality. I don't think it's on the same level as Corsair, Crucial or Samsung, and that's about all I can say. Going back to you adding a fan and the temps dropping: how hot was it? If you were pushing much more than 60*C, then I'd be looking at my CPU cooler and/or thermal paste. What voltage is the CPU set at? It should be 1.750V, but it may be reported anywhere from 1.74-1.76. If not, adjust it so it's getting that amount of voltage. If you played with anything recently before in your BIOS, especially in relation to the CPU and/or memory, you might've forgotten about it and thought something was screwing up. This is me speaking from experience here
Elixir was sold under the "major" banner that stores use here, I dont know if it's the same back where you live. This is more expensive than OEM but less than Kingston (or corsair obviously). The cpu temp was 51-52 idle, then was up to 54-55 at full load. It never reached the boundary of 56 that I had put. Now it seems that it is 48-49 at idle and around 50-51 at full load. It also takes more time for the temp to go higher. My cpu is a Palomino btw. I cannot say what thermal paste was used as it was the store who put the cpu/heatsink/fan on the mobo, for warranty purposes. The guy said he put Arctic Silver, but I have a hard time believing him. I never applied thermal grease before so I'm a little relunctant at trying it just for fun. I think I changed the clock from 166 to 133 before that happened but that's it, I played with memory timings after but it did not change anything. Like I said, I loaded the default settings and it worked right away, I played 2 nhl games and had no problem. It also locked up when the screen saver started but now it is fine. I must have changed something somehow.
Ok I have the exact readings, I'll give them all. At reboot, the temp was 46 then went up to 47. vcore set to default is at : 1.73v DDR Dimm set to default is at : 2.44v 3.3v : 3.27v +5v : 4.91v +12v : 12.22v -12v : (-)11.62 to 11.70 -5v : (-)5.25v 5vsb : 5.02v Battery : 2.08v Anything wrong here ?
Looks alright. Sounds like the RAM couldn't take the 166MHz or it's able to do it but without the lowest timings---which isn't a bad thing, but it's just not something you wanna get if you want to tweak your system out.
I used to tweak the memory with the lowest timing, but anyway, it does not make that much of a difference !
hmm...this problem sounds similar to mine, and i still havent fixed it. luckily at the moment it doesnt crash or restart unless i play new 3d games. Although it used to. I hope u fix it cos i might give me a clue as to what is wrong with mine :stupid:
I fixed it. All I did was to load the default settings in the bios. When I made sure everything was working again, I lowered the mem timings and it still works perfectly. In my case, the reboots happened when the cpu was under a certain load, like when the screen saver starts, 3d games, xp install, burning a cd, etc
