[MatCon5]

Hello all.

I have a small problem with random reboots and playing games.
I'll be a random amount of time into Oblivion, or older games such as Divine Divinity (Then there are games that don't seem to bother it, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Counter Strike : Source, a few others).
And my system just up and reboots on me. No error messages, nothing in the event log etc. Even with turning off restarting on a error from the control panel. I've done scans for everything, cleaned up, defragmented my hard drives, cleaned out some dusts etc. I have nothing overclocked as well.
I've had my system sent to a Tech. He ran memtest, Prime95 and 3DMark for hours on end, even let most of them go overnight. Nothing seems wrong at all, other than these random reboots.
I have updated drivers and chipsets etc as well.

My system is as follows
Enermax 480W PSU
MSI Neo-F Mainboard P965 (Conroe board)
Intel E6600 @ 2.4Ghz
BFG 7900GT
2 x 1gig Super*Talent RAM
2 x WD Cavier 250G 8MB Cache
Onboard Audio

Can anyone help me diagnose the problem?

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Download Everest from my signature. Run Computer > sensor. Wait few seconds until data shows up. Report All the temperatures and voltages that are registered.

[The Skeptic]

Download Everest from my signature. Run Computer > sensor. Wait few seconds until data shows up. Report All the temperatures and voltages that are registered.

[MatCon5]

Thanks for your reply, my temperatures from Everest are as follows at the current time.

Field Value
Sensor Properties
Sensor Type HDD
GPU Sensor Type Driver (NV-DRV)

Temperatures
CPU 50 °C (122 °F)
GPU 51 °C (124 °F)
WDC WD2500JS-00NCB1 52 °C (126 °F)
WDC WD2500JS-22NCB1 40 °C (104 °F)

[The Skeptic]

Temperatures are OK. Please report voltages.

[MatCon5]

Everest won't show me voltages when I go to Computer > Sensor.
Is there another way to check them?

[The Skeptic]

Enter BIOS and in one of the menus, sometimes called computer health, or something of this nature, you can read the voltages. The power supply unit could be a source of the problem (I assume that other hardware pieces were tested, as you wrote). Quite often if in a bad shape, or too weak for the hardware, it could cause restarts.

Please check if the video card is properly cooled. You should be able to touch the heatsink comfortably.

[MatCon5]

I'll restart and check the BIOS and feel the GPU and see if it's too hot, Just got done a short bit of gaming. I'll edit and post my findings.

These are my findings. Touching the heatsink/fan on my GPU, it's not too hot I can touch it comfortably.
My voltages that I found under Computer Health.

System Temperature - 38°C

CPU Temperature - 47°C

CPU VCore - 1.35V

3.3 V - 3.29V

5 V - Between 5.12 and 5.15V

5VSB - Between 5.12 and 5.15V


Thanks you again for you help.

Edited by MatCon5, 05 May 2007 - 05:22 PM.

[anzenketh]

Not shure of the top of my head about CPU voltage but the rest looks fine.


Go ahead and go to.

Start > control Panel > System (or preformance and maitnance and then go into system)

Then go into Advanced tab> Under startup and recovery click on settings.

Under system Failure uncheck Automaticly Restart and tell us where the Small dump directory is set to be located. Probibly %systemroot%\minidump

You are probibly getting blue screen error messages.

On the blue screen we need the information under technical information.

[MatCon5]

Okay, it's turned off, it always was. I've had these problems for a long time, they are completely random.

and yes, the dmp file (if that is in fact what you are after)

It's located at %systemroot%\MEMORY.DMP

EDIT: Also, it's set as a Complete Dump. And the minidump folder is empty. Even with viewing hiding files and folders

Edited by MatCon5, 05 May 2007 - 06:26 PM.

[anzenketh]

Ok that means that your computer is not getting blue screens.

We may be looking at a hardware problem.

Is this Completly random or does it happen in intervals.

What are the power saving setting set to.

EDIT: Changed first sentance.

Edited by tuxmaster, 05 May 2007 - 07:50 PM.

[MatCon5]

My power settings are set to always on, my monitor goings into standby after about an hour.

And it seems to be completely random, sometimes I go days/weeks without it happening. It used to happen in Oblivion a lot. I turned on Vsync and it stopped, it started happening again, I turned off Vsync, and it works fine.

With other games it's just completely random, Divine Divinity, a rather old game sometimes caused my computer to reboot. As did The Sims 2. - FEAR, STALKER, Command and Conquer 3, also some older games, such as Buldar's Gate 1/2, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights all do not cause my computer to reboot.

It's driving me insane actually

Some things that are usually always running on my system are;
Nod32, Kerio Personal Firewall, Trillian, Steam(only when I'm playing a game from Valve),Nvidia Settings, System Volume, Realtek HD Audio (onboard audio) manager and half of the time, utorrent.

Just thought I'd add that bit of info.

Also, running WinXP Home with SP2 latest updates etc.

Edited by MatCon5, 05 May 2007 - 08:23 PM.

[anzenketh]

OK lets look in event viewer.


To do this you can go to start run > eventvwr.msc

Look in system Do you see any Red X.

If so what are the errors. ON what days and did your computer restart durring that time.

[The Skeptic]

Looking into eventviewer as suggested by tuxmaster is a good idea eventhough I doubt if you find anything meaningful there.

The problem that you have might be very difficult to pin-point due to it's randomness. At the present time it can't even be said whether it's of a hardware or software origin. My gut feeling is that there is something wrong with the hardware but I am not sure at all. Had it been in my lab I would try to install another power supply unit, rated at least at 500 watt and give it a try. The voltages that you wrote down are good but you need only a slight, momentary, drop in voltage to reboot the computer. The fact that the it fails when you play games, heavy resource users, indicate that there is a connection between load and the reboot problem. A psu in a marginal condition could cause this.

I assume that the technician who checked your computer did a good job and at the present we can exclude other hardware problems such as memory, HD and cpu. This is not entirely true because the sheer ramdoness of the problem can fool any test.

[MatCon5]

By the looks of it, I'll need to try a more powerful PSU, since nothing else seems to point towards the reboots. Until I gather the funds to do so, I guess I'll just have to live with it.

I'll try what tuxmaster said and post my findings.

Thank you all for your help so far.

In the event viewer, the only things I find with a red X, or a Yellow ! is. (Within the past 2 days or so, in that time I probably had about 2 random restarts)

Yellow !; (Warning)
The time service has not been able to synchronize the system time for 49152 seconds because none of the time providers has been able to provide a usable time stamp. The system clock is unsynchronized.

Yellow ! (Warning)
The browser was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\DOWNSTAIRS-PC on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{CA82CF8A-4B5F-4E47-8086-C55E41BA1512}. The data is the error code.

Red X (Error)
The browser service has failed to retrieve the backup list too many times on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{CA82CF8A-4B5F-4E47-8086-C55E41BA1512}. The backup browser is stopping.

Not sure if any of that helps, but that's all I got from the event viewer.

Thanks again guys, your help is greatly appreciated.

Edited by MatCon5, 06 May 2007 - 03:33 AM.

[MatCon5]

Anymore help available?
Was playing Oblivion for almost an hour, and I got another reboot.

Completely stumped.

Just to add another bit of info. There is a BIOS update for my mainboard MSI Neo-F P965 Conroe.

The update says it's for the CPU Microcode. Just thought I'd share.

EDIT/Update
Looking up specs on my RAM, Super Talent, the timings are 5-5-5-15 and runs on V1.8
In my BIOS which is set to AUTO, it lists my RAM as 5-5-5-12 and runs on V1.85

Could that be the cause of my problem perhaps? or is that something I should change before it starts causing problems.
Or doesn't it matter?

Thanks in advance.

Edited by MatCon5, 06 May 2007 - 11:23 PM.