Computer restarting randomly
My first guess would be a bad power supply. 100 degrees fahrenheit is nothing for a computer. Bad RAM would be another possibility but you'd likely get a BSOD for that.
Swap in a temporary PSU and see if it helps.
I have another PSU that I could test with (higher wattage, 650 vs the 450 the prebuilt basics came with), but it's a huge pain in my [censored] to swap them out and I wanted to wait on that til I got the new video card...*siiiiiiigh*
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Good choice on CPU and Motherboard. If you are looking towards a 9800 GTX+ then might I suggest the GTS 250 instead. Yes they are mostly the same, but the GTS 250 delivers a little more power while consuming less wattage.
I agree that heat is probably not an issue here, so lets look at other causes first.
Faulty RAM tends to cause a BSOD, but the wrong RAM voltage settings tend to cause system instability. That is worth double checking at least.
Speaking of possible system instability, that particular ASUS motherboard is easy to overclock. Did the pre-builder do any overclocking? (If a company did the build, which one?)
All in all my first guess would be the PSU. That is more of a pain to swap out though so I would try the less time consuming ideas first. Could you link the exact model?
.
.Driver Sweeper * CohHelper * HijackThis * TweakCoH * CPU-ID
* Defraggler * Program Security Scan * PC Performance Scan *
The RAM I've got is 4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Kingston HyperX). CyberpowerPC doesn't tend to give options that are not compatible when building a computer. When I get back from work today, I'll double-check the voltages just to be sure.
No overclocking. I got it pre-assembled, but no tweaks done, from CyberpowerPC.
All else fails, I'll be swapping PSUs today when I get back from work, and if that fixes it, I'll be thrilled. Otherwise, I'll probably be calling CpPC.
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Yeah, Aggy, 100F is something way high for a PC...no matter what component (vid cards can take it, it's not good for them...but CPU's, or PSU's, or NB's, or SB's, they all die at that hieght). Try some of my programs in the Common Issues thread and see where it's coming from, that particular reading. If it's the CPU, see if the CPU's heatsink is setting correctly, or wobbly (it shold be a TINY bit mobile, but for sure, not wobbly or tilty).
...just saying.
Good luck.
P.S. We kknow I only skim threadds, so pardon if I missed something.
100 Fahrenheit is anything but high for a pc... where do you live - Alaska?? 100F is aproximately 38C... I *wish* my pc ran that cool...
A system temperature of 40-45C is average, 50 is tolerable, 55+ you're starting to get up there... Bear in mind these are system temperatures. You're lucky to get a video card to run at 60C these days. My 8800gtx tops out at 80C if it's being pushed hard.
You know what? You are completley right. Was not paying attention. Completely confused my c's and f's for a second there. Ignore my post.
Must be an off day...we're all allowed those, once in a while.
Edit: Somewhat in my defense, I'll point to my sig, so as to give some sort of evidence that I'm not completly ignorant to the correct running temperatures of a PC....ussually
Edit#2: However, my spelling does, in fact, still suck.
You didn't post (sp?) or [sp?]...
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
[ QUOTE ]
100 Fahrenheit is anything but high for a pc... where do you live - Alaska?? 100F is aproximately 38C... I *wish* my pc ran that cool...
[/ QUOTE ]Hehe!! No, close but no biscuit! Seattle -- and I don't even have air conditioning.
I have three heat readings on my temp monitor, currently reading at:
VGA: 84.7F//29.2C (<--- keep in mind this is a crappy old 6200, so it's going to be cooler than new models)
CPU: 84.7F//29.2C
HDD: 89.8F//32C
I can technically get two more heat readings (2nd HDD, SB XFi when installed), but I haven't hooked that up yet (need more power socket cable thingies).
I am about to tear it all apart to swap power supplies now. *crosses fingers* Be back later!...hopefully...
If I don't burn the apartment building down.
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Hehe, good luck, Aggy!
YOur temps are fine...better than fine. I don't know what I was talking about before...brain-spaz, I think.
Edit: ALTHOUGH...it IS rather strange that you CPU and Vid card temps are EXACTLY the same...I wouldn't trust one of those...just throwing it out there...
They're two different little wires taped to them, so they are definitely reading appropriately. I have seen them different numbers before.
OK. Now I'm actually going to go disassemble things. I got caught up doing my favorite game (look at new posts in Player Questions and tweaking P.Wiki to clarify answers), and now I'm off.
For real this time.
No, really, for real.
...
...
Quit looking at me like that.
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It's almost certainly the power supply. 450 isn't that great and I'm willing to bet it's a non name brand which means that the wattage to the rails will likely be lower than it should.
Don't count your weasels before they pop dink!
Couple months ago (when i was playing wow), I got to playin one day and I blackscreened almost immediately. Shook it off and rebooted. Was playing for about 10 minutes and froze. Whole comp froze. Rebooted and while Windows was loading (at the desktop) it blackscreened. Checked my temps (fine), my volts (fine), and ran malware/spyware/virus scanners.
Couldn't find ANYTHING wrong. Left it that night sitting in windows, got up next morning and everything was looking good. Surfed the forums, checked the news, loaded up WOW. Played for about an hour and BAM, lockup. Rebooted, played again for about 3 hrs np. Next day I woke up to it blackscreened.
Ok, so since i've been building system for about 18 yrs, I got into my stash of goodies. Figured must be Video related cause thats when it mostly happens is under extreme video. Does same thing with another vid card. Decided to run a memory check. Halfway through it blackscreened. Great, think I might have some flawed memory.
Got my memory in a week later, fired up and.....played wow for 15 min before BLACK SCREEN!!!!. Well crap. Thinking MAYBEY my PSU MIGHT be issues, I reordered another on. A big 700watter. Nope.
Finally in desperation I reordered a new motherboard...... Haven't had a problem sense lol.
I never really had a problem like that before. Initial test codes came up fine on boot and a couple testing programs I have gave it flying colors in tests. It acted JUST like a heat or, as someone mentioned, a voltage rail problem.
If its not ur PSU, ask a friend to borrow components just to check something out (memory stick, vid card, etc) and just go down the line and eventually you'll get it.
Good Luck
Well, I have successfully swapped PSUs and rewired. (I hate rewiring.) Even got it all plugged in to the right places on the first try, go me! Rewiring sucks.
I played around on the web for a little while for a baseline test. No restarts.
I have solo'd in CoX for a little while for a "minimum effects at once" test. No restarts.
Tomorrow I am going to gather up a big group to take it on a stress test.
I hate rewiring, but my initial thought is that swapping PSUs may have fixed it. *crosses fingers and toes* *knocks on desk*
Did I mention that I hate rewiring?
EDIT: Oh, in case anyone's curious, here's the new system. I had to change my pants the first time I fired that monitor up...
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Yay!
Anh, the computers nice and all...but I want that big ol' bag of Gummi Bears!!!!!
...oohhhh, pretttyyyy monniitttooorrrr! <drool>
I would like to take this moment to mention that isn't the total rated wattage of the PSU but the watts available at 12 volts that can limit a stock power supply.
PC Power Consumption: How Many Watts Do We Need?
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
...was that a PSU PSU, FatherX?
Looked more like a PSU PSA to me.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
[ QUOTE ]
...but I want that big ol' bag of Gummi Bears!!!!!
[/ QUOTE ]Yours for only $5.something at Costco! XD
It's a full SIX POUNDS of gummi bears. XD
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City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com
[ QUOTE ]
Looked more like a PSU PSA to me.
[/ QUOTE ]
...and that's my cue (which I spelled "que" in another post somewhere ) to get off the forums for the night.
<grumble> carpping "U" <grumble> carping "A" <grumble>
Glad it's working Agg's.
Aggelakis, are you using a Flat Screen Television as your Monitor? It sure looks like it!
Try my 3 MArcs: I.D.#67166:Protect the Artifacts!! I.D.#97724:Level-Up Time. I.D.#243803:Witch War! Salem vs. Croatoa!
Point being that in their 'worse' test (i7-920 with a GTX295) they recorded 503 watts with both the CPU and GPU at full burn. 468 watts of that was at 12 volts.
On their low end 'gaming system' (E8600 with a HD 4850) they recorded 189 watts with 160 watts at 12 volts.
There point, made so very clear with their data, is it's all about the 12 volts baby. When shopping for a power supply, the total amount of power available from the 12 volt part of the supply is the key stat you should be looking at. It doesn't mater that a PSU is rated at 450 watts if it can only put out 200 watts at 12 volts, there are modern 300 watt PSUs that can do that.
Today's modern motherboard/CPU/video card uses less than 50 watts at 3.3 and 5 volts. A number of cases that come with a generic 400+ watt power supply were designed back in the day when video cards rarely needed external power directly from the CPU and if so tapped it off the 5 volt supply. It doesn't really matter if the 3.3 and 5 volt side of the PSU can deliver 200-300 watts of power because today's equipment doesn't need that much at those voltages.
The XBit Labs article is simply a more up to date article that reconfirms the conclusions and data from this older article from SilentPCReview.
Anandtech also had an article about PSU size realities. Now they were looking at the total AC watts the PSU was pulling from the wall, showing overall that today's PC rigs, even quad core, dual GPU set ups don't really require kilowatt PSUs. However in their recommendations for PSUs, all of them can provide 80+% or more of their rated power at 12 volts.
Since I'm already yacking about PSUs lets touch on the single/multiple 12 rail debate. Unless the PSU is outrageously expensive, all PC PSUs only have a single 12 volt supply. Now the manufacturer can choose, and are encouraged in the PSU design specifications, to divide this single 12 volt supply into separate 'circuits' or rails. Each of these are capped to all at most, X amps, normally less than 20. Think of this as the circuit breakers in your house or a fuse in an appliance. The idea behind the limit is if that 12 volt rail is shorted out, the wires carrying the 12 volts won't melt, evaporate and catch on fire, not necessarily in that order.
Now it's the PSU designer that is suppose to choose which devices are going to be connected to which rail so in normal operation, if everything is plugged into that rail is drawing their normal maximum current, it won't end up blowing the 'fuse' on that rail. Some designers may choose poorly. Others simply tie each type of power connector back into the PSU on their own cable. The PCIe power connectors are on their own cable, the 4/8 pin CPU power connector is on it's own cable, the 12 volts from the motherboard main power connector is on it's own cable, etc. It makes it so if you look inside a PSU you'll see a whole mess of yellow wires (12 volt wires are yellow) soldered into the PSU circuit board. The one pictured is a Corsair HX850 (single 70 amp rail) and fortunately uses a module cable design otherwise there would have been even more yellow wires in that bundle.
And since I'm already up to my neck ranting about PSUs, lets conclude with PSUs and video card recommendations. Video card manufactures recommend a minimum size PSU, usually with a 12 volt amp rating as well, with their higher end video cards. They originally only provided a PSU size because back in the days of older PSUs, more watts overall meant more watts at 12 volts. Because of this, initial PSU size recommendation were huge and now persist in the PC gamer's 'race' memory. Now as newer PSUs designed around providing a lot of power at 12 volts and they document this amount on their websites and the sticker on the side of the PSU, video card manufactures can now list more realistically sized PSUs as long as they can provide X amps at 12 volts. This amp rating is for the whole system. As it stands today, a single PCIe video card with one 6 pin and one 8 pin PCIe power connector can use at most 250 watts of power, a bit under 21 amps at 12 volts assuming all that power was at 12 volts.
So when you see the GTX295 listing a 680 watt, 46 amps at 12 volt, that's for the whole system, not just the card. Also, two 8-pin PCIe power connectors can reside on the same 17 amp or higher rail with out causing any problems. You don't need to find a PSU with a 46 amp rail.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
[ QUOTE ]
It makes it so if you look inside a PSU you'll see a whole mess of yellow wires (12 volt wires are yellow) soldered into the PSU circuit board. The one pictured is a Corsair HX850 (single 70 amp rail) and fortunately uses a module cable design otherwise there would have been even more yellow wires in that bundle.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, I get a 403 Forbidden with that link.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It makes it so if you look inside a PSU you'll see a whole mess of yellow wires (12 volt wires are yellow) soldered into the PSU circuit board. The one pictured is a Corsair HX850 (single 70 amp rail) and fortunately uses a module cable design otherwise there would have been even more yellow wires in that bundle.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, I get a 403 Forbidden with that link.
[/ QUOTE ]
Meh, I was worried about hot linking the image, can never be sure with some sites.
Here, halfway down the page, picture with the bundle of wires along the right side of the picture.
Start of article if it turns out I can't link to a page within the review, picture is on page 4.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Hiya! I just frankensteined a new computer recently. I bought the basics (case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, harddrive1 (C and G drives), PSU) pre-built, with a temp monitor inside but not hooked up (which I hooked up), then used my pieces (GeForce 6200, harddrive2 (E drive), CD-RW) from my old computer. This is a fresh XP Pro install, as of this past Saturday.
NOTE: YES, I KNOW...the video card is absolute crap and I really shouldn't be using it in a system like this, but I don't have the money to get a better one. When I do, I am eyeballing the 9800 GTX, or the 280 if the price comes down considerably by then...at least a few months from now.
I would set my computer knowledge at "enough to be dangerous", but I don't do things that I don't research considerably yet, so I generally don't royally screw things up.
Basically, the computer restarts. Randomly. I can be in-game, at the login screen, tabbed out, or not even have the game running at all - it has happened a few times when I'm just surfing the web. It happens much faster in-game though, which is why I'm wondering if it's heat or a power-draw issue. There's no warning, it just goes from "la la la, clickie buttons, move mouse, ooh lookit the purty" to "why is my screen black?" - very, very occasionally there is a pause of like a second or less, but that's rare.
It's probably not heat, but I don't know. I hover around 90-97F (32-36C), rarely getting up to 100F (37.7C). I've got three case fans (intake front and side, exhaust back), plus a big heatsink+fan combo on the CPU, and the PSU exhaust fan. I haven't figured out how to alter BIOS to not auto-shutdown at a certain heat threshold, so I haven't ruled it out entirely, but I am doubting it. (Incidentally, this is the coldest any computer of mine has ever run.)
I am wondering if it might be power related, but in order to test that out, I'd have to disconnect my temp monitor (which probably draws the most power from the PSU of all my components), which means two of my fans would stop working (they are powered through it), meaning any crashes after that could be heat related OR the original problem.
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.1.1.7---
DxDiag gathered at June 26, 2009 22:12 (-07:00)
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3 (2600.xpsp_sp3_gdr.090206-1234)
System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
System Model: System Product Name
BIOS: BIOS Date: 02/23/09 21:14:18 Ver: 08.00.14
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 3326MB
.Net Memory Report: 2918MB out of 3326MB available
Page File: 4983MB (228MB currently in use)
C Drive: (WDC WD2500AAJS-55M0A0) 16730MB out of 24999MB (66%) free
E Drive: (WDC WD2500AAKS-00VSA0) 238135MB out of 238472MB (99%) free
G Drive: (WDC WD2500AAJS-55M0A0) 204581MB out of 213473MB (95%) free
D Drive: (HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8483B) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DirectX Diag version: 5.03.2600.5512 (32-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor's Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 6200
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 6200
Video Memory: 128.0 MB
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.8618
Driver Date: 6/10/2009 6:03:00 AM
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: Logitech USB Headset
Driver File: usbaudio.sys
Driver Version: 5.01.2600.2180
Driver Date: 8/3/2004 11:07:56 PM
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: P5Q-PRO
Motherboard Version: Rev 1.xx
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 02/23/09 21:14:18 Ver: 08.00.14
BIOS Version: A_M_I_ - 2000923
BIOS Release: 20090223000000.000000+000
Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1024x749
3D Resolution: 1024x749 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: No
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 486, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: No
Physics Quality: None
Maximum Particles: 100
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No
Anti-aliasing: None
Anisotropic Filtering: None
Texture LOD Bias: Crisp
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Lowest
World Texture Level: Low
Character Texture Level: Medium
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 0.500
Entity Detail Level: 0.500
Shadows Enabled: No
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of Extra Player FX Enabled: No
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes
Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 0.020
Music Sound Volume: 0.000
Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second
Current Game Version: 18.20090422.5T
Installation Directory: G:\City of Heroes
Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found
-------------------------
Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 10:57:16 PM, on 6/26/2009
Platform: Windows XP SP3 (WinNT 5.01.2600)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP3 (6.00.2900.5512)
Boot mode: Normal
Running processes:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\system32\RUNDLL32.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe
E:\Programs\HiJackThis\HijackThis.exe
O2 - BHO: Windows Live Sign-in Helper - {9030D464-4C02-4ABF-8ECC-5164760863C6} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live\WindowsLiveLogin.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [IMJPMIG8.1] "C:\WINDOWS\IME\imjp8_1\IMJPMIG.EXE" /Spoil /RemAdvDef /Migration32
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PHIME2002ASync] C:\WINDOWS\system32\IME\TINTLGNT\TINTSETP.EXE /SYNC
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PHIME2002A] C:\WINDOWS\system32\IME\TINTLGNT\TINTSETP.EXE /IMEName
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [KernelFaultCheck] %systemroot%\system32\dumprep 0 -k
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [nwiz] nwiz.exe /install
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [NvMediaCenter] RUNDLL32.EXE C:\WINDOWS\system32\NvMcTray.dll,NvTaskbarInit
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [AIM] E:\Programs\AIM\aim.exe -cnetwait.odl
O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [ccleaner] "E:\Programs\CCleaner\ccleaner.exe" /AUTO
O4 - Startup: Glycerine.lnk = ?
O6 - HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions present
O6 - HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel present
O9 - Extra button: AIM - {AC9E2541-2814-11d5-BC6D-00B0D0A1DE45} - E:\Programs\AIM\aim.exe
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {DFB852A3-47F8-48C4-A200-58CAB36FD2A2} - C:\WINDOWS\system32\shdocvw.dll
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Spybot - Search & Destroy Configuration - {DFB852A3-47F8-48C4-A200-58CAB36FD2A2} - C:\WINDOWS\system32\shdocvw.dll
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: @xpsp3res.dll,-20001 - {e2e2dd38-d088-4134-82b7-f2ba38496583} - C:\WINDOWS\Network Diagnostic\xpnetdiag.exe
O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
O23 - Service: Lavasoft Ad-Aware Service - Lavasoft - C:\Program Files\Lavasoft\Ad-Aware\AAWService.exe
O23 - Service: NVIDIA Display Driver Service (nvsvc) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe
--
End of file - 2802 bytes
Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
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