Random Reboots

[hubcap1324]

I am new to this forum and hopefully I can contribute regularly. I have a pc that is causing me to go mad. It will randomly reboot and freeze from time to time. When it freezes, sometimes the screen just goes dark and the monitor loses signal from the pc. I know the most comon cause of this symptom is either a power supply or heat. I changed th PS with a 450W Antec. As far as heat goes, CPU usually runs around 47C and case around 40C. These are a little on the warm side but not hot enough to cause probs in my opinion. I next turned to the video card. Since I had an old geforce2 I decided to buy a new geforce4 card. Same problem. What would u try next?

[Dan]

hi and welcome to PCMechanic
it always helps if you include a few more details about your system and what you have loaded....
let us know so we can be of some help..

[hubcap1324]

ooops sorry...I meant to and forgot
AMD 1600+
Antec 450W PSU
512 MB DDR
K7T266Pro2 MB
GeForce4 TI4200 128 Vid
SB Live xgamer card
2 Maxtor 80gb hdd
Win ME
No Overclocking at all

[minsonngo]

Try checking first for any viruses. This could be the main cause of your problem. Also you could look to see if you have any device conflicts or any buggy or outdated software and drivers. Your new power supply is good so that cannot be the problem. The temperature seems fine so that problem is out too. Additionally try a different AC outlet and check to see if all the hardware is install correctly. Hope this helps out! Good luck!

[minsonngo]

Also what type of memory do you have? Generic memory can also cause alot of problems. I hope this is not the case though. Memory does not come that cheap.

[Markoman01027]

Check for Spyware. Download Search and Destroy. Run a search on goole for Search and Destroy.

Download Microsoft's Regcleaner. Search for Regclean on google.com.

RUN MSCONFIG, and disable a program one at a time, and see if the problem still persists.

Random reboots can also be a case of faulty RAM.

Docmemory.com for a RAM tester. Sometimes RAM testers are not 100% exact, so it's best to try another stick of RAM of the same type to see if the problem persists.

[Cricket]

Hi hubcap1324,

Try running the computer with the case sides off and see if that helps. If the problems go away, it's heat related.

If the problems don't go away, try stripping the system down (to motherboard, CPU, heatsink, video card, 1 stick of RAM, hard drive and power supply) and see if it runs well. If it does, one of the devices you removed is causing the problem. Start reinstalling them one at a time and when the problems return, the last device is the problem.

But if the system is still unstable in a bare minimum setup, then one of your core components is bad. For what you're describing, it might be a defective motherboard.

Cricket

[Dan]

I'm with the Lagomorph (hi Cricket...
sounds like a loose hardware connection, or maybe faulty hardware.