Random PC restarts

Bucketman

So my Girl Friend's PC is having problems that I can't figure out for the life of me. Basically whenever she plays a game after awhile (sometimes hours sometimes a few minutes) it will freeze and the computer will restart. I have been trying to figure this out for MONTHS now and have yet to get any evidence on what the problem might be. I have taken t he following steps:

-Checked the Windows Event log to see if any spicific part of her computer may be overheating or acting oddly.

-Tried several different hard drives

-Monitored the temp. on her CPU and Hard Drive

-Defraged, Checked the drive for Errors, run virus and spyware scans

It MIGHT be beacause she only has a 512 stick of RAM in there. But I don't know if this problem would even occur if that was the case. Or it simply could be bad RAM but I can never get Mem test to work right for me. Any advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

TychoCelchuuu

I would try memtest, yes, but also update the BIOS and the chipset drivers and the video card drivers and any other drivers you can think of. What are the specs of the computer?

Bucketman

TychoCelchuuu wrote: »

I would try memtest, yes, but also update the BIOS and the chipset drivers and the video card drivers and any other drivers you can think of. What are the specs of the computer?

MoBo: ASUSTeK K8V-X SE
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3400+
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 6600
RAM: 512 of DDR-SDRAM PC-3200 (200 MHz) - [DDR-400]
OS: Windows XP home

TychoCelchuuu

Okay, well, I dunno what I was expecting but that doesn't change any part of my answer

Uncle Long

There's always the classic "check all connections and visually inspect the motherboard and all components." I mean, when I first read your post I initially thought it was overheating, but it seems you've already been there and done that. It could be bad RAM, it could be a bad connection, it could be a dying motherboard. Hell, it could be vicious malware; I guess just keep us updated.

TheFish

Sounds like a power supply issue to me. Try swapping the PSU for a known-good one (and not a crappy one that came free with a case)

NovaRev

I had a problem like this a few months ago with a machine that I put together myself. Crashes/reboots would occur anywhere from 1 minute to 8 hours into a game. To make a very, very long story short, I threw almost everything in the book at this machine for the better part of a month without success. In my search for answers, I eventually ran across a forum post somewhere recommending a program called Prime95, which is apparently pretty popular for testing system stability. Prime95 gave me an error message, I Googled said error message, and after a little bit more hunting through tech help threads on forums, I finally had my fix: set the DRAM clock from 200MHz down to 166MHz in the BIOS. After I did this, Prime95 ran without error for 12+ hours and the system has been completely stable since.

I don't know if this specific fix will work for you, but it might be worth a shot. It may have been a unique situation with my specific CPU/RAM combo (3GHz P4 and two 1GB DDR400 RAM sticks). One thing that you will definitely want to do is click Start, right-click My Computer, choose Properties, hit the Advanced tab, choose Startup and Recovery Settings, and then uncheck "Automatically Restart" under System Failure if it is not already unchecked. This will give you a Blue Screen of Death with (hopefully) specific error messages when the system fails, which is a lot better than a seemingly random restart that tells you absolutely nothing.

Also, if you're having trouble with Memtest, Windows Memory Diagnostic is a pretty easy-to-use alternative. You basically burn it to a disc and then have the computer boot from the disc and off it goes (make sure to switch it to the more extensive tests once it has started).

If fixes like simple driver upgrades, testing for bad memory, checking for loose connections or looking up any blue screen errors that you get don't help you out, it's probably worth trying Prime 95. Here's the Wikipedia page for it with a download link at the bottom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime95

Also, what are the games that she plays on it? Games that should be fine with 512MBs of RAM? It's probably worth knowing if she is playing games that won't do too well on 512MBs of RAM.

Anyway, good luck with getting it fixed!

KVW

Seems to me random restarts typically come about from PSU issues. Do like earlier poster said and try a known working PSU. Ones that come with a generic case or cost $20 rarely last more than 3 years without any troubles, espcially if you do heavy gaming or other power intensive work.

Bucketman

Ok, so far I've tried updating the video and CPU drivers. I've run the Windows Memory Diognostic(passed with flying colors). And right now I'm going to try running that Prime 95. If all else fails I'll take the Power Supply out of my PC and try it in hers. Thanks for all the help so far.

As for what games she plays. Mostly the Sims 2 and WoW.