PC rebooting randomly

[mic_y]

Hi guys,

Once again I am having an issue that I just can't solve...

A PC I have (Intel i5, 4GB RAM, Intel H55TC Tom Cove, 500GB HDD) keeps rebooting randomly. I am using an el' cheepo 350W coolermaster PSU. The system seem rock solid when it is actually being used (Have run memtest and Prime95 and 3D Mark '06 for hours on end with no issues, so it doesnt seem like a PSU issue). Orignally I thought that it was the PSU, so I got that swapped out for a new one.

It seems to reboot when either idle or very low usage.

I am running Win 7 Ultimate x64. Any ideas what else hardware wise could be wrong? Yesterday, when i was playing around with it, it did give a BSOD, but I was unable to take a photo quickly enough to see what it was complaining about specifically.

Thanks in advance for the help

 

[Pada]

You can use BlueScreenView to get the BSOD information afterwards.

Otherwise, you can disable the automatic restarting: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/automatic-restart-windows-7.htm

 

[mic_y]

ok having looked at some of the BSOD's has not helped one bit... there were a whole bunch of them, all relating to different drivers... some to ntfs.sys, some to ntoskernel.exe etc... decided to try and format and reinstall, but that did not help one bit. still rebooting randomly when idle. I am trying to turn all power saving features off (both in BIOS and Windows) and will see if this helps. Could it be that the PSU is just not giving enough juice (though this would be weird as then it would tend to fail while under load, not the other way round).

I have run the extended Windows Mem Diagonstic 3 times (each run takes about 6 hours) with no errors returned.

Please help me guys. I can upload the dmp's if anybody thinks that would help.

Thanks in advance...

 

[Romito]

Try cleaning it If you haven't already, Removing and Re-seating the Heatsink might yield some results.

 

[mic_y]

hey Rom, checked CPU temps, they were sitting at 50 in BIOS and no logs of thermal shut-downs... reseated the heatsink with AS5 and temps are in the same range. After turning off the power management stuff, it seems stable. Will leave it on for the night, to see if it decides to act up again. this box is being the biggest pain in my ass...

 

[CriticalConsumer]

BSOD's are generally related to hardware issues. By sounds of things your memory could be the problem...but that's without me taking the time to ask the right questions...

Below are a few links to assist you decode your BSOD:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc750081.aspx
http://www.computinghelp.info/the-most-common-causes-for-bsod-blue-screen-of-death/
http://www.winvistaclub.com/t3.html

 

[iGamer]

Okay, this will sound crazy, but I actually had a customer once with the same problem. The solution? Check that the reset button isn't slightly in.

 

[mic_y]

ok with all power management features (Speedstep and C-States) off in the BIOS, the system has lasted 8 hours without a hitch while completely idle. I checked the BIOS and it is a really old revision (2009 Nov). Am now flashing the latest (2011 Jan) BIOS, will re-enable power features, and see if anything has changed...

 

[Captain Beer]

Had the same problem recently with a customers PC, random blue screens, messages about corrupt dll files etc. Ran many hours of memory tests which it passed, eventually decided to put new RAM in and problem solved. I don't trust memory tests

 

[buyeye]

i bought my i5 system 2 years ago at pczone,it had the same problem i swaped the psu for a 550 watt one but it didnt go away until this year when lighting fried the mobo.now it runs like a dream with a new mobo.