Why Does My Computer Randomly Reboot??

U

undermind

Member
-Dual core 2.8 GHz Pentium 4
-Asus P5LD2 Motherboard
-2 Gigs RAM
-250GB and 80GB Seagate Barracuda HD's
-LynxTwo Soundcard
-Windows XP Home Service Pack 2
-Cubase SX3
-Athena Power rackmount 4u case

This all started about a month ago. One night I was recording in Cubase and my system rebooted on it's own. No errors, just a clean reboot as if I had selected Restart from Start>Shutdown. After it came back I continued on. This happened 2 more times that night before I shut it down for the night.
I thought there was a cooling issue, so I addressed that. I got a new power supply with a better (large) fan, I got a turbine fan which goes in a PCI slot, and I re-arranged the fans to get better airflow through the case. It idles cooler now.

The random reboots don't actually follow a pattern of high temps in the computer. I've been monitoring the temps, and there doesn't seem to be a connection. But once it reboots, it will take less time to reboot again everytime it restarts. In other words it reboots more and more frequently until I shut it OFF and let it rest. I may get 45 min or an hour before it reboots then.

I thought a little while back I had fixed the problem. One time after it rebooted on it's own it came back on and said that there had been a hardware change and that I needed to re-register Windows. I did that and did not see another reboot for about 3-4 weeks until tonight when it rebooted 3 times.

I have searched and read extensively on system crash discussions in the forums. I'm pretty knowledgable with computers. But I know I could learn more about making my computer a more hardcore recording PC. This computer is STRICTLY for music only. It is NOT on my network, and does not go online. I have disabled the mobo's built in sound card, but it seems there is more I should disable. When I shut down the system, I often get a message saying it is shutting down Realtek HD Audio.. Don't know the exact phrase because I'm recalling from memory. But it seems that things are running in the background that I don't need. I used msconfig to shut down what I can. But I'm sure theres more I can do. I turned off windows alerts, but I still get popups on the bottom by the clock. And the alert sounds seem to possibly confuse the soundcard. When I'm in an audio program, I get no alert sounds. But when I'm not, it takes a second or two for the Lynx card to spit out the alert sound, such as the Windows start up and shut down sounds. I know I could use a little help fine tuning my system to be a recording machine. And I would appreciate your help in doing so. And any ideas on what's causing the reboots would be wonderful! I spent a lot of money and time putting this system together and it's extremely frustrating not having it stable.

Thanks!
 
BigRay said:
bad memory module or PSU is my guess.

check out www.musicxp.net for optimal tweaks.
Click to expand...
I installed memory in mine, and this happened. The memory itself wasn't bad, but the upgraded RAM was using more juice than my MB could supply when it was really working, so it would reboot. There is a free mem test that I tried using, and it wouldn't run, so I isolated the problem to the memory. I had to pull some out, and now it doesn't do that.

Just a thought.
 
Sounds like an electrical problem. Either not enough wattage or something was installed (physically) incorrectly. Did you build this thing yourself? Do you have the proper grounding in the casing? Still possible its something else but random reboots are a sign of low power, or maybe even a bad HD. Just throwin that on the table.
 
I did try changing the power supply. It's a 450 watt, replacing the original 400 watt. I've re-seated the RAM chips. And I'm not sure how I can get a much better ground, but I'm open to suggestions..

Yes I built this myself. I've built every computer I've owned since the early 90's, and have never had a problem. That's why it's frustrating to have problems on the most important one.. :mad:
 
change your error reporting from "automatically reboot" to the "stop" or something option so it will blue screen instead of rebooting and that way you can see if it is hardware or software
 
A bad HDD or flaky (intermittent) HDD cable can do this too...

Sometimes it just boils down to substituting components one at a time over a period of time to track it down.

I feel for you man. :eek:
 
Yeah, it's happened to me a few time for various reasons
PowerSupply
Harddrive
lose component
bad power conectors to harddrive
Overheating
 
right click on My Computer and go to Manage
Then go to Event Viewer and System

If something is up with a windows process or something it should tell you the error even though it didn't popup

At least that will give you a place to start
 
It's most likely your memory either over-heating, or going bad. There's only a couple of other things that can happen too, like the guy said, it can be your video card going out, but it's probably not since you'll really notice a difference in your display if your video card's going out... Sometimes a faulty modem causes a computer not to turn on, which happens frequently, even if the computer is not plugged into the phone jack.
 
altitude909 said:
change your error reporting from "automatically reboot" to the "stop" or something option so it will blue screen instead of rebooting and that way you can see if it is hardware or software
Click to expand...
Where can this be done?
 
Right click on my computer/properties-> advanced/startup and recovery
de-select automatically reboot.

You should get a the BSOD instead of a reboot. Write down the error codes and what is making it crash and just google that info
 
I would suspect memory incompatibilities, if you added an extra stick that is just a little different from the other stuff in your PC, they will do that. Also, you might try a battery back up (UPS) with power filtering, sometimes a bad or noisy circuit will cause stuff like that.
 
OK I think I may have figured it out. Well, at least for the most part.

I've noticed that it usually reboots when I'm tracking remotely in my office/vocal booth. I use the Tranzport wireless DAW controller when I'm tracking myself. The last time it rebooted, the computer had been running fine for quite a while until I started tracking with the Tranzport.

So I got the latest driver, and have been tracking with it for a few hours with no issues. Awesome!

I know the computer has rebooted once or twice when I wasn't using the Tranzport. That's why I didn't narrow it down to that as the cause. I don't see how the Tranzport driver could cause the other crashes, but I won't actually complain too much if it happens once on a blue moon.

I hope I got it this time. Thanks to everybody that contributed. You guys gave me some great tips, which helped me figure out what was happening. And now I've got the system even more dialed in with some of the tuning tips from MusicXP.net
 
you could have more than one problem, which I hate cause it makes it hard to pin point. Do you have a UPS? some times wiring faults can cause reboots. Once I was recording a show and my PC would reboot at random. a UPS fixed that.
 
musicstew said:
Check the power supply.
Clean all spy-ware and run your virus checker.
Click to expand...
Like I mentioned earlier, this computer does NOT go online and the power supply has been not only checked but replaced.

It appears to be an issue with the Tranzport like I mentioned a few posts back. Man, I really do appreciate the help.. But I swear people just read the thread title and reply without reading anything in between.

I also did find a bad stick of RAM. I think this was unrelated to the reboot issues. I just did some troubleshooting and tracked down that stick after the Tranzport driver thing.

Thanks for the help again..
 
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