Spontaneous Reboot Problem

Hi Glenn,

I would try a format and reload of windows before I paid anyone to run
tests...it could be a driver problem...or you may have picked up a
worm or virus...

No worm or virus. NAV 2003 with updated signatures on a regular basis. I
ran blastfix.exe just to make sure, but no worm found.

I have an image from a month or so ago of my OS and applications, so I could
restore that if nothing turns up on the hardware tests, but since no drivers
or hardware have been changed recently, I really don't think that's the
cause.

It's at the shop now. I don't mind paying a few bucks if I can pinpoint a
definite diagnosis.

Regards,


--
Don
Photo Website at:
www.dlcphotography.net
remove "lens cap" for email reply

I had the same problem. I insisted on a motherboard swap (after the
power supply). Problem was solved.

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 20:14:53 -0500, "Don Cohen"
wrote:

Well, after the system was up and running almost 48 hours without incident,
the monitor went black without warning, and the same bsod came up (I have my
system configured to not automatically restart, to help identify this
problem).

I'm beginning to wonder if it's related to the isolated 'blackouts' I have
had with my monitor since it was new. There were quite a few of us who
experienced this problem when this was system was new, around 2 years ago.
What normally happens is that the monitor goes completely black for about
2-3 seconds, and then comes back on without anything else happening. This
would happen perhaps once a month or two, sometimes more, sometimes less
often.

Now, it's as if the same thing happens in that the monitor goes black for a
second, but then instead of coming back on, the system reboots (or goes to
the bsod dependng on configuration). If these are related, I guess it could
be a videocard or motherboard issue.

I'm going to have to break down and bring it in to have some diagnostics run
to try and pinpoint the problem.

Bummer....I really thought the PSU solved it!

Don

P.S. Here is the original post for this whole fiasco:

I have a 2 year old Gateway 700XL (2.2 GHz Pent 4., 1024 Mb RAM, 120 GB HD,
XP Home, ATI Radeon VideoCard with FPD1810 LCD Monitor), which has run
virtually flawlessly. The only glitch has been a rare monitor black-out
lasting a few seconds (without any reboot or other issues), occurring once
every couple of months. I researched this problem, and saw that many others
experienced this with this hardware, with no definitive answer that I could
ever identify.

I keep it well maintained in terms of critical updates, have run AdAware,
NAV 2003, ZoneAlarm, etc.

Out of nowhere it has started spontaneously rebooting. I'll just be doing
the usual - either checking email, browsing the web, and the screen goes
black, and without further intervention, it just completely reboots. I'm
not a gamer, so the system (or video subsystem) is not getting any real
work-out when this occurs.

My daughter reported this happening when she was using it perhaps a month or
two ago. Then it happened once yesterday. Today it happened again, and
kept doing it, running only 5 or 10 minutes before rebooting. Now I have it
turned off, and will let it cool down overnight and see what happens in the
morning.

I took the side cover off and verified that the fan was spinning (it seemed
fairly fast but I don't know how fast it should be). The side of the metal
around the CPU was fairly warm to touch, but it didn't seem excessively hot.
After turning it off completely, I gently vacuumed the fan and surrounding
area, case vents, and left the side off for better ventilation. It still
rebooted.

I downloaded MemTest, and tried running it. It got to around 70%, showed 0
errors, but then rebooted so it couldn't complete.

I'm inclined to think this is a hardware issue, but short of bringing or
sending it in for service, what kind of diagnostics or other methods can I
use to try and define the source of this problem?

Has anyone experienced this with this or similar systems?

I had done some 'googling' yesterday and what I found suggested fan, memory
or other hardware failure, but one person concluded a software problem (I
forget which) was the source.

Any help greatly appreciated. I really depend on this computer for many,
many tasks, on a daily basis!

Thanks!

Don,

It's funny, I just started getting this same problem on my machine,
and I too have an ATI card. Not more than 4 weeks ago, the system was
fine. Now, I can't get away with using the system more that 20
minutes before it restarts. No warning, no error messages, clean
error log, etc... I was going to try and run Memtest and Motherboard
monitor to see it it's possibly a memory or heat issue.

I'll post back if I come up with anything. The only event I can
coorrelate is that I did the recommended Microsoft updates about 3-4
weeks ago.

Patrick

"Don Cohen" wrote in message ...
Dan and Ben,

Thanks for confirming my tentative conclusions; it seemed logical, but you
never know...

And I have not seen any other BSOD's or any other messages. It's always the
exact same one whose details I posted at the beginning of this thread..

I let memtest86 run for over 6 hours, it went through more than 2 complete
cycles doing *all* the tests (including the 'extended' ones), and still no
errors - I'm taking that and concluding my RAM is ok.

I haven't looked for Dr. Watson logs, but that's not a bad idea.

But the bottom line is that I'm going to go out and buy a new PSU today and
hope that will fix it. I'll post back one way or the other.

Thanks again, guys.

Don
www.dlcphotography.net

"Dan G" wrote in message
...
Not to mention the video card drawing more power.
Is there any other BSOD message other than the non-paged error?
What about Dr Watson logs?
There's only one way to diagnose a PSU issue, and that's to replace it.


ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers) wrote in message
...
Yes, the power supply is stressed less when Memtest86 is running.
During
normal
full operation, hard drives, CD-ROM drive, network card all draw added
current.
... Ben Myers