PC restarts itself

[Dan Burnap]

Hi, up until now I was using my PC with Core Duo 2.4, 3gb RAM (2x512MB, 2x1GB), XP (SP3) quite happily.

Now, when using PPro CS3 (editing SD) the PC will smetimes suddenly restart itself without any warning whatsoever. Plus I have noticed that when rendering a timeline trying to do anything else is practically impossible as it's dead slow, with the mouse pointer stuttering etc. It used to be able to do other things, even AEffects with ease at the same time.

I ran a memory check for the best part of 24 hours and it came up clean, there is no overclocking being done either.

Any suggestions???

Thanks

[Mike Meyerson]

I had a similar rebooting problem...it turned out to be my power supply.

Do you know what kind of power supply (brand and watts) your running?

The only other thing I can think of...from what I've heard, some RAM works better if you use matching DIMS...all the same size. Might be worth a try.

[Edward Phillips]

Have you added any new external or internal hardware? I've had similiar issues while running Avid that ended up being power supply problems. I was able to catch a Blue Screen for a split second before the computer restarted. I changed the settings by right clicking on My Computer, choosing properties, then on the advanced tab clicked Settings on start up and recovery and then unchecking 'automatically restart' under System Failure. This allowed the blue screen to stay up and I could record the error messages.

[Dan Burnap]

Thanks for the quick responses chaps. I have a MasterCooler PSU 600w. My chassis is pretty packed with stuff although nothing added recently.

I did uncheck the 'restart automatically' and so far it hasnt restarted..

I have an Abit AB9 system board which has its 'uguru' app which monitors voltage etc, all seems to be in order.

[Bob Hart]

Dan.


If it happens again, as it periodically does with mine, switching off, opening up the case and then disturbing all the memory boards and other sub boards in their motherboard sockets and making sure they are firmly home seems to make it go away for a while. I first observed this problem after plugging in a firewire lead which probably shifted something.

With mine, I think it is the video graphics board. It is a heavy item and fan vibrations from its own fan and the motherboard fan might be enough to cause vibrational wear of contacting surfaces with consequent build-up of resistive debris or just simple migration of dust and fluff to cause the same problem.

But I unplug and replug every sub board and memory board when it happens and it seems to fix it each time.

[Chris Soucy]

If this has only recently started happening, I'd take a pretty serious scrute of your ventillation/ cooling system.

Fans can go intermittant (either electrically or mechanically) , grunge up with er, grunge (applies to vents as well) and generally cease to perform as designed.

If this is happening to anything associated with the processor, it will cause it to throttle back to reduce heat O/P and yes, even re - boot.

Heavy pile carpet in the immediate machine vicinity is a good source of grunge, as is animal fur, but plain 'ol household dust does a pretty good job all on it's own.

Apps like SisoftSandra will monitor key temps and voltages and give you a visual indication if things are not as they should be.

Another possible culprit is your processor heatsink working loose/ partially popped - worth checking too.


CS

[Robert Martens]

I can't agree with Chris more; a good cleaning is always healthy for a computer, and you wouldn't believe some of the crap that builds up in these things. A few weeks ago I had to repair some systems for a friend after a lightning strike, and I'm honestly surprised the things worked before it hit; judging from the dust bunnies I found, lightning is the least of his problems.

Originally Posted by Edward Phillips

... and then unchecking 'automatically restart' under System Failure. This allowed the blue screen to stay up and I could record the error messages.

That's the one I usually recommend, as it gives you the stop code and, occasionally, a DLL filename that can help you pinpoint the problem.

Failing that, you may want to check the Event Viewer (Start->Run->eventvwr.msc and look in the Application and System areas) and Dr. Watson log (Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson\drwtsn32.log) to get some idea of where your problem lies.

The Event Viewer items with yellow or red icons--warnings and errors, respectively--give filenames, error codes, and sometimes links to appropriate Microsoft KB pages that may get you going in the right direction. The Dr. Watson log is less useful for most users, containing mostly developer information, but like the other methods gives you a filename that could reveal the problem. New entries are at the bottom, so just click on some text all the way at the end of the document, hit Ctrl+F, choose Up as the search direction, and enter "Application exception occurred" as the search string. That should take you right to the last entry.

Unfortunately, a problem causing a restart like this might happen too quickly to be recorded in either of those locations, but if you have problems noted in these logs they may be related to the issue you're experiencing.

[Oren Arieli]

My first guess would be power issues, followed closely by heat issues (closely related as they are). If you manage to 'resolve' both of those...or know for a fact that your PC is running solid and stable with any/all other software. Try this free app: CCleaner - Home
Then defrag your system drive.

Make sure all of your video drivers are up to date. If all else fails, re-install the software (check on Adobe's forum first...there is a way to do a better removal than through Windows Add/Delete program).

Best of luck.

[Chris Soucy]

to this thread?


CS

[Chris Barcellos]

I had issues like this trying to capture or edit with files on a USB drive- both in Premiere Pro 2, and Vegas. Are you running into problems with those types of drives ?

Had an ECS board with 4gig memory, AMD Dual Core 3800+ I never solved the problem, but reduced by adding a better power supply.

Don't have the problem with Premiere on my new Core Duo Quad system-- cause 2.0 not supported....

[Chris Soucy]

And the answer is..............................?


CS

[Greg Boston]

I would add my vote to Chris' suggestion of a good cleaning. Sounds like system cooling (especially the CPU) might be compromised. Power supply is another one. You won't necessarily see a bad PSU by watching voltages. It's when that voltage ceases to be a nice pure DC that ugly stuff can happen. Sagging voltage can do it as well, but dirty power will cause random stuff. I had the same thing happen in my HP tower a few years back. I'd get errors reading or writing to drive C, and or sudden BSOD screens. It was nothing but a bad power supply unit. The hard drive was fine after I let CHKDSK go through and find/repair the corrupted files.

Dust bunnies laying on memory chips can cause random stuff also.

-gb-

[Dan Burnap]

Thanks very much for all the suggestions chaps. I gave everything a good spring clean and reseated everything, no cigar. I checked the box to stop the restarts and sure enough was confronted by the BSOD. Not much usefull info on that, just a generic message.

So, I decided (maybe I should have done this first) to run a disk check on my systrem drive for the next boot up. It found lots of errors and reportedly fixed them all, repeated the disk check and no errors found. Still BSOD'ing..

Decided to re-install XP and so far no BSOD..fingers crossed

Thanks again

[Ken Steadman]

I had something very similar happen to me last spring computer would just turn off and restart under stress. I was pulling my hair out trying to discern what was the cause of it. After tons of trying anything I could think of (cleaning out, new heatsink, new power supply, memory checking, swapping out memory, reinstalling XP)

I finally figured it out, the memory modules were fine but they were telling the BIOS the wrong memory timings as soon as I switched them manually to the correct timings my computer hasn't locked up since. Only takes a minute to look them up and check the BIOS.

*crossing my fingers*