Computer Restarting Issues

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paul3000

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Jul 19, 2006
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Hello Everyone,

Here is the issue I have been having, this has only occurred while playing World of Warcraft none the less, but it has not been during particularly intense gameplay at any time. My computer has been either completely restarting, or it has frozen up completely and does not allow me to do anything except power down or restart manually. After reading around and monitoring my CPU load with my lcd keyboard, I figured it might be the cpu cooler since I had the stock one. I purchased a Artic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro, which I liked because the fan is already setup to blow air right out the rear fan of the case. The same issue however has been occuring. The restarts or the freeze can happen either 10 minutes into playing or after hours. So I would just like input on where to go from here. The only thing different that I've seen is that recently during start up at the Black Windows Logo loading screen the picture will distort for a second or so. Actually the computer randomly restarted once when I was outputting video to my TV to watch a movie file.

Further history on my computer, I sent the Video Card in previously because I was getting distorted images while playing games, when I got the 7900GT back, my computer shows it as a 7950GT.

AMD 64 X2 4200 Windsor 2.2ghz
EVGA 7900GT 256MB PCI Express
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 7200RPM SATA
ASUS M2N-E nForce 570 Motherboard
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Thanks for the help,

Paul
 
hey paul...i was just looking at your specs and you know that I have the same RAM that you do and I just finished some tests and it was that one stick of the RAM was bad. I was getting random lockups/freezes as well and it turned out to be the ram :S.

However, that does not mean that in your case it is the ram. What you need to do first and foremost is to download a computer monitoring application such as speedfan or everest (free edition). these programs tell you about your temps, voltages etc. In speedfan you can select which temps to monitor and log them to a file. Monitor your computer while playing a game etc and see if any of the values seem out of range when the computer locks up. It might be that you have a faulty power supply and these programs will be able to monitor your voltages to see if they are moving all around the place. It also could be that something might be getting too hot such as your processor and that might cause it to lock up. is the cpu fan working properly?

If everything seems to be pretty stable after monitoring your computer for a few hours...then you will need to test your memory one stick at a time using memtest+. Do a search for the program and then download the floppy version so that it can create a bootable floppy for you to test your ram when you reboot. you need to change your boot priority to allow in your bios to allow for the computer to boot from the floppy (if it is not already setup in that fashion). Run memtest for a couple of hours maybe about 3 per stick of ram. this will allow memtest to do several passes. I have a x2 6400+ and it did about 13 passes in about 4.5 hours. It should be noted that sometimes bad ram can pass memtest, but memtest is a pretty decent test and might help you to narrow your problem. If you can, borrow some RAM from a friend that knows that the RAM is working and test it out on your machine. If it works, then you know its your RAM that has a problem somewhere.

if your ram passes the tests, then the next thing might be to do a check of your hard disk. run scan disk or another utility that is able to check the health of your drive. if this checks out ok.... then you might have a motherboard issue or another component issue. try removing components one at a time to see if any of them are causing the computer to lock up such as a network card, sound card etc.

If that does not work...then I would probably deduce that it is a motherboard failure.

Diagnosing computers really sucks man. I can't wait till OS's are able to pinpoint errors and let you know what to get instead of spending days/weeks/months trying to figure out what is wrong with your cpu.
 
how does server lag create a lock up? he says his computer freezes completely/restarts. not to mention several graphical glitches. I think his problem is a little deeper than just server lag or a low end system. his system isnt even low end. i mean sure the 7900gt is a very capable but slightly old card nowadays, but I would consider that system mid range for sure. that has more than enough power to run WoW.
 
Thanks for the advice, I'll run through the tests this weekend and post what I find. I was having issues earlier on when I built the computer and tested the ram, but it tested ok after I ran the tests individually for hours. But I'll certainly check them again.

Also server lag has never caused my computer to freeze up or restart before, the game keeps working whenever the server ends up lagging. But i'm sure that post wasn't made to be helpful anyway.
 
I would be looking at the PSU and memory, corsair is usually supposed to be good stuff though, but test it to be sure. Download a program called speedfan, when you open that, it will tell you your voltages and things, post what your voltages are showing. I mention it because you don't specify what power supply you've got, sometimes, not all, but sometimes the cheap ones that come with your case aren't always the best.
 
forgot to mention....u need to post your OS etc. do you have the latest drivers for everything? did you recently do a xp repair install? have down all the updates to the OS? Corsair is def. top notch stuff. However, as everyone knows, RAM can give out no matter what brand.
 
Here's some more info and an update. I haven't run the tests, will start tonight. However I did have another surge protector plugged in (basically as an extension cord) for my 23" LCD tv and AT&T UVerse box, as well as my charger for my phone. I decided to plug that surge protector in another socket, just in case. I'll also check all my drivers tonight and BIOS.


Antec TRUEPOWER2.0 TPII-480 BLUE ATX12V Ver.2.01 480W Power Supply
Windows XP Professional - Should be completely up to date, reformatted my computer about 3 months ago.
 
Could be a driver issue. I had similar problems with an ATI card that didn't like earlier versions of .NET being installed. Try uninstalling all .NET from add remove programs, uninstall your video driver and any related graphics suite software. Reboot. Install only latest version of .net, reboot. Install latest video driver.

I know you don't have an ATI card but this worked for me.
 
I haven't gotten the chance to do memtest and will post soon.

Here's what I have listed in SpeedFan

Vcore1: 1.17V
Vcore2: 3.20V
+3.3V: 0.00V
+5V: 4.84V
+12V: 11.39
-12V: -16.97V
-5V: -8.78V
+5V: 4.73V
Vbat: 2.94V
Vcore: 0.00V
+3.3V: 3.28V
 
Several strange readings.

The two vcore readings look unusual. I don't know much about AMD CPU's but 1.17 volts looks too low and 3.2 volts looks too high.

The -12 volt reading is much too high. OTOH, nothing critical uses the -12 volt output. The -5 volt reading is really strange. I do not think that the Antec TP series are wired for a 5 volt out. My 550 and 650 w TP3's aren't.

Do you get the same readings if you boot and immediately go to SpeedFan on a cold system?
 
Here are the readings for when I first booted up. The other readings were after I had the computer running for about three hours playing Warcraft and running Ventrilo, the computer restarted three times on it's own during that time span.

Vcore1: 1.17V
Vcore2: 3.20V
+3.3V: 0.00V
+5V: 4.87V
+12V: 11.39
-12V: -16.97V
-5V: -8.78V
+5V: 4.73V
Vbat: 2.94V
Vcore: 0.00V
+3.3V: 3.28V

These seem to be nearly the same.
 
Here are a few updates, I took out one of the sticks of 1GB sticks of ram because I was setting up things to rum memtest+. I also ran Spybot right after I booted up and then proceeded to run AdAware, however when running AdAware the computer just restarted. So I decided to run it again, and it restarted at the same spot in the process of the scan or near the same spot of the scan. Not sure if that is relevant, nonetheless I restarted and am running memtest on one of the sticks of ram and will do the same for the other.

Any other input would be great. Thanks!

*Further Update*

No errors on one stick after running for an hour and a half. However when I booted I received a Cannot Boot Drive Error of some type before windows started. I also got this error message

Error signature

BCCode: 100000c5 BCP1: 0C468A0B BCP2: 00000002 BCP3: 00000000
BCP4: 8054A727 OSVer: 5_1_2600 SP:2_0 Product: 256_1
 
Apparently I had an issue with a trojan program. So I reinstalled my system software because I was able to fix the problem but the system ran exceptionally slow after. After checking the memory and no errors coming up I decided to order a new power supply and give that a shot and see what happens.

Any other input or insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
I think it's a good call on the new PSU, that 12v+ rail looked a little questionable on the voltages. After seeing the voltages you listed, my suspicion is that your PSU was doing enough to boot and run but when it started to heat up and you put load on it, IE your games, that it was giving you your issues. Good luck!
 
So I installed the new power supply here are the readings.

Vcore1: 1.18V
Vcore2: 3.14V
+3.3V: 0.00V
+5V: 4.73V
+12V: 11.65
-12V: -16.97V
-5V: -8.78V
+5V: 4.70V
Vbat: 2.96V
Vcore: 0.00V
+3.3V: 3.20V

I have not had a crash yet, but I'm going to give it some time seeing as it was not predictable when it happens other than video intensive items.

Let me know if those readings are better, also my video card runs about 70-75C while playing WOW, does that seem a little high?
 
My computer randomly restarted last night, play World of Warcraft and having Ventrilo running. Any ideas of what I should do next?
 
i have the same problem only with warcraft just replaced everything and pc restarts on own after 10 min or an 1 or 2 hr just random people all said ram motherbord or video card so i ended up replacing every component except pcu 1 at a time and problem still happend then 1 day fig it only happends inwarcraft thinkin its a curropt file and found out it was an addon i had curse client and it renamed interface folder and WTF folders to interface342dkfka and wtf23kasd3 (numbers aftter folder name arent exact just example) so i deleted them restarted wow and reinstalled addons manually and voila went 2 solid weeks no problem then the other day bought new videocard the 4890 and formated pc after install and im back having that problem with the restart in wow and once again folder names where changed so i changed them back but now it still happends i no this isnt a solution just another feelin your pain and i to need help so somebody PLEASE HELP ME AND PAUL PLEASE
 
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