random reboots

Hi, this relatively new intel m/b I got awhile back (P4 850e chipset one) running win2k keeps rebooting for no good reason now and then, several times a day (frustrating!) can't find any bugs w/norton or pestpatrol, minimal drivers installed, no memory problems.. ports look secure.. usually random reboots are symptoms of a remote trojan control, but can't find any bugs here..

anyone have similar experience, eg random reboots for no good reason, on minor events like closing IE or other s/w?

appreciate it.. I also just got a new asus m/b and it looks like i get to spend this weekend re-installing/registering software on the new hard drive/pc as a replacement to this one.. still, I'd like to find out what happened to this one... likely I'll reinstall win2k once i make the migration to the new pc .. that may fix it..

ideas though? I also had that happen with a gigabyte m/b awhile back... random reboots several times a day, no good reason I can think of ... well under the memory cap for the pc ..

thx, if anyone has ideas?

 

GUESS YOU SHOULDA BOT AMD HA!

 

Ken DTU

Used to have thye same problem under windows NT. Once I got Windows 2000 it was over. Had to do something with NT's problem to assign memory space for simultaniously running programs.

Regards,

 

Seeing as today was even a bit warm up here in the Pacific northwest, is your CPU particularly warm? It's the season for this sort of thing. I had this happen to me with a machine once, and as it turned out, I had the thing in a sunny, fairly breeze-free part of the house and the CPU was overheating quite a bit. The result under Linux was random segfaults...the result under windows 2k was random reboots (by default, when win 2k gets the "blue screen of death" it often reboots before you can see the blue screen).

Try running the thing with the cover off and a fan pointed at it and see if the reboots go away.

Poor quality memory causes a similar sort of thing, and sometimes a bad graphics driver, or driver conflicts.


Edit: try setting the default to not reboot when a system halt occurs so that you can see what is causing it. Start->Settings->Control Panel->System->Advanced->click the "Start up and Recovery" button and uncheck "Automatically reboot". That way, when Win2k crashes, it won't automatically reboot and you can get some information on why it might be happening.

 

I have the same problem, close down I.E. or any program that accesses the net and the first monitor goes black then blue with some white text for just a sec then, reboots.

I also have Norton System Works, now that I think about it, it started about the time I installed it.

I will remove Norton and see if that makes a difference.

regards,

Bruce Hawkins

 

thanks, excellent idea, didn't know that was possible... very good idea... I'll be able to see conflicts hopefully, and check the system event viewer log etc..

re temp... I'm in an a/c condo, it's chilly in here (with the tropical ocean view out front) .. likely not a heat issue... will check though..

and right tonkadad.. it seems it never reboots when IE is off.. so likely something in the IE .. though have run all the latest windows updates, and have reinstalled IE.. have had the bsod start to occur this last couple of days too..

good thing I have a 2nd hard drive I'm backing all my things up to daily just in case there's something wrong w/it..

good ideas all, thx..

 

Thanks Corvus,

Your tip about disabling auto reboot did the trick. I was able to see the file that was causing the problem.

It was sound driver problem. Deleted and reinstalled, seems to be ok.

thanks again,

Bruce

 

Well, here's what I would do..

Reinstall Windows, with the presumption that the software has gone corrupt. As you may know, after enough use , installs, reinstalls of software and over time.. Windows will get flaky, run slower and leak memory (it "is" Microsoft after all).

If you still continue to have identical problems after the reinstall, then it may be a hardware issue. Ideally you want to isolate the defective part by putting in known good hardwares and then trying to make the system crash the same way.

Random reboots are typically from over heating or a soon-to-fail power supply. Windows crashes and lock up errors would likely be memory and then a CPU/Motherboard combination issue.

 

REINSTALLING WINDOWS IS SOMETHING HE IS TRYING TO AVOID. HE CAN FIGURE THIS ONE OUT BY HIMSELF. HE'S TRYING TO AVOID SUCH A RADICAL FIX DONT YA THINK? :eek:

 

Cool...FYI, this works with XP and NT4 too since both of them share largely the same kernel as Win2k.