spontaneous reboots

[slurm]

Hello all,

For the past month or so, my PIII 800 @800MHz has rebooted itself once a day or more. Windows 2000's "Automatically reboot" option is disabled, and regardless there is nothing showing up in the Event logs.

Besides the odd random reboot, my machine will *always* reboot itself if I task between 3d mode (playing games mostly) and 2d video mode (i.e. with Alt+Tab). I'm stumped. Anyway I'm getting ready to start replacing hardware and I was hoping someone might have a suggestion as to what the problem might be. Thanks

-slurm

PIII 800 @800MHz
Asus CUSL2 i815 motherboard
256MB PC100 SDRAM
Creative TNT2 Ultra
Creative Soundblaster Pro
Windows 2000 SP2

 

[DeanSpencer]

Don't think it is a software problem. Sounds more like hardware to me. Check fans for overheating to make sure they are all spinning. First thing I would look at is ram or powersupply. A+ MCP
deans@bellsouth.net

 

[Zorlod]

Its possible that you maybe getting electricity spikes or surges, which could potentially restart..Its also possible that you need a larger power supply. Many companies only put in the bare minimum that you need to run the basic OS and any software they load. But once you get some 3D graphics games running and a big video card working hard in it, you may not have enough watts to run it all. I'd say your system should have at least 300W.

 

[osuman]

You may also want to make sure your RAM is indeed running at 100 MHz. If it's trying to go faster it could lead to this sort of problem. Justin

Feel free to email me at:
beckham@mailbox.orst.edu

"3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population."

 

[butchrecon]

I had the same problem where I work. I had 10 PC's that would reboot at any time.(All PIII 800EB, Soyo S7ISA+ OR EPOX main boards). OS did not matter(Some had Win2K, Win98, LINUX). After replacing NEARLY everything on one system I was able to determin that it was the Main Board. The board had integrated Audio and Video. I am unsure why it did that. As soon as I replaced the board on the other PC's it stopped. James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[edito]

It may seem simple but I had a random reboot problem that was fixed by simply changing the power cord. Unplug it and check for signs of arcing at the power supply or weak spots in the cord itself.