Random shutdown and restart

prk72

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I've officially thrown in the towel and am asking for help. I've built a HTPC, this machine will shutdown for no reason and boot itself back up. I don't know what else to do. On one test after installing Win7 and updating all the drivers from the MOBO CD it would shutdown just as you get to the sign in screen. I disabled "Turbo" in the BIOS and that would allow me to start up normally. Now it will shut down typically when watching a 1080p MKV movie running XBMC about 45 minutes into the movie. I don't have an issue with the heat of my CPU, typically it doesn't get over 55C, the max I've seen is 62C. The only adjustment I've made to the BIOS was to turn of the Turbo setting. This is what I have:

Gigabyte H55-USB3
Intel i5 650 @ 3.20GHz
A-Data DDR3 1333 2x2GB
WD 20EADS
LG DVD Drive
LG Bluray Drive
Corsair 550VX

Please help!
 
There's nothing wrong with the quality of your parts, so no suspects arise.

The fact that disabling Turbo "helped" is probably the best clue to follow first, so let's treat it as "an unstable OC" even though you didn't OC it.

Clear CMOS and then load "Failsafe Defaults" in BIOS.

Please run Prime95 for an hour if you can, with "Detect rounding errors" checked. Use CPUID's Hardware Monitor to watch temps, even though those should be fine.

If it fails, clear CMOS again, reload "Failsafe Defaults", then manually enter the timings and voltage your memory sticks claim to need. Save and boot.

Run Prime95 again. If it fails, reload failsafe defaults and test each stick of memory separately with Prime95.

Let us know what happened.
 

prk72

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I'm about 1 1/2 hours into the Blend test all is going smoothly. I didn't see "Detect rounding errors" as an option. I'm not sure how long this test is suppose to go on for, I'll try the "In-Place Large EFTs" test next.

Assuming these go well would it be an issue with the BIOS when I have "Turbo" and "Multi-threading" inabled?

Total of 2 hours, nothing came up as an issue. I honestly wish something did come up as a problem so that I would at least know what is wrong.

So, after that test I loaded up RipBot264, selected the stream from the Bluray, it loaded fine and then when it started to demux the streams BAM - my computer simply shutdown and restarted again.

Tried again, got about 10% into the demuxing and BAM.... Really? I'm about to go POSTAL
 

prk72

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I thought by flashing my BIOS (put a jumper on the MOBO) for a few seconds it would revert back to an older version, but according to my system I'm at F7 for my MOBO which according to the website is their latest BIOS.

I could be wrong here but if I load "fail safe defaults" shouldn't it disable mutli-threading and turbo boost? I've loaded the fail safe defaults and my turbo boost is set to auto and mutli-threading is enabled.

Turned off the turbo boost again and ripbot is running smoothly, although I just can't figure out what the problem is exactly. I know I have a good chance of having my machine reboot again while watching a movie even with turbo boost turned off.
 

prk72

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I must have misunderstood you, above you said if it fails to do X, but Prime95 didn't fail. You didn't mention what to do if all the tests came back okay.
 
OK, without "Detect Rounding Errors" on, the run would ignore computational errors and just "test" for heat issues. The option is a checkable entry on one of the pull-down menus. Sorry, I'm on a limited PC atm, and can't check for you.

An hour run should be enough - it is likely to fail with "Detect" on. The fact that it didn't fail in your run indicates what we already thought, heat and max cpu power are not in themselves an issue.

Sorry, but you have to do it again.

"Flashing" BIOS is done quite differently, and changes the Basic Input Output System (mini-OS) code stored on a ROM chip. What you did is clear CMOS, the place where the options controlling the PC are stored.

Again, I apologize for missing your first post.
 

prk72

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No worries about missing the other post, I shouldn't have submitted two back to back.

So in the mean time I decided to install Win7 x64, since I really couldn't think of anything better. I must say, all seems to be going well thus far with RipBot, and when that is done I'll fire up an MKV movie via XBMC and see what happens. If I don't have any problems then I'm going to laugh, because going from X86 to X64 IMO shouldn't be the answer.
 

prk72

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Well drats, Ripbot ran but in the end when I attempted to watch a movie running XBMC the same shutdown occured. I thought to try WMP and again shutdown.

I'm running the Blend test again with "Round off checking" checked. I hope this is what you were referring too. Should I be running the Blend test or the Inplace Large EFTs test?

Thanks for your patience and help.
 

prk72

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a new update, and this one I think is pointing me in the right direction. Hopefully someone can shed some light on the why and what to do next.

I'm using XBMC to organize my media, I'm using ripbot264 to compress my bluray collection. When I watch a compressed HD mkv file BAM my computer shutsdown and restarts, if I watch the raw m2ts file it plays all the way through without shuttingdown. Hmmmmmmm.

Now that I learned of this, any ideas on what my problem is? I don't.

Thanks!
 
Dunno. If the hardware doesn't get hot (cpu and/or gpu), and passes Prime95 with Rounding errors detected, and if failures occur in only one type of application . . . that's fairly significant lol.

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with your software.
 

prk72

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Back to square one. I was on Win Explorer searching google about my problems, I had handbrake open in the background (not doing anything) and my pc did it again. shutdown, then reboots. OMG I don't know what to do.

All I've done to this system is:

Installed Win7 X64
Updated Intel graphics driver
Updated Realtec LAN driver
Installed and updated all recommended drivers on the Gigabyte CD
Installed Ripbot264 and all required additional software
Installed AnyDVD
Installed XBMC
-----------------------------
 

prk72

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I've got a Fatality 550, I'll give it a try. In the mean time I reinstalled Win7 x64, installed the drivers from Gigabyte's inlcuded CD and VLC Player, got about 5 minutes into Monsters, Inc. when the system shutdown. I wish it gave me some sort of error code or log file to review.
 
I'm glad you have another psu because we're down to substitution or guessing now.

If the problem repeats with the new psu, I know you'll enjoy another Win7 install lol. Don't install anything except perhaps AnyDVD, only if needed (I use it as well), and then try using the machine to the extent that you can with WIndows' (and hardware manufacturer's) software only.

If that fails, (assuming you don't have a spare cpu around) I'd probably RMA the mobo, suspecting some kind of graphics malfunction.
 

prk72

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Well, I'm glad that I opened my case again...I'm not sure if it was the difference but I had a SATA cable plugged into the MOBO that wasn't plugged into anything else. It must have been when I put in an older HD to transfer some files. I've since been able to watch Toy Story for about an hour or more without any shutdown. This is with my original PSU. Does this make sense to anyone?
 
If that SATA cable was picking up stray pulses, or sending out unanswered carrier pigeons, or shorting out something . . . it could confuse the cpu/OS/psu to the point one of them would throw up its hands.

Keep your fingers crossed, and get back to us. This would be the most unusual issue I've seen . . . though a cat peeing on a vid card comes close.
 

prk72

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It happened again while watching a movie. As much as I'd like to believe it has something to do with video or audio I'm thinking not. After I think back to when it has shutdown while doing something as simple as browsing the internet (no video) and reading the news. When I get a chance I'll swap out the Corsair PSU with my Fatality.

On a side note, I used the Gigabyte install disc to update the BIOS and that was prior to reading in the manual that before updaing your BIOS you should turn off multi-threading.
 
Updating the as-shipped BIOS is not a good idea unless the update is specifically required to fix something needed in the configuration you have. It just adds risk at the wrong point in the build process.

This leaves open whether to consider reflashing BIOS, preferably without using an in-Windows approach, but certainly following the manufacturer's directions.