Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help!

Amy571 · 08-13-2008, 02:51 AM

I am getting absolutely desperate for some kind of information, any kind, on this problem I am having.

Back in March my mother and sister were ever so kind as to surprise me and buy me a new Dell XPS 720 desktop after my computer had an unfortunate accident during a big move. This was a big spend for them at almost $2000, we just do not have that kind of money, so this computer is rather special to me in that they did this for me kind of spontaneously.

From Day ONE there were some problems. Upon carefully removing my computer from the box and hooking it up, I went to turn it on for the first time. It begin to boot up, but suddenly stopped and restarted before continuing on and allowing me to setup the OS. Obviously this made me quite nervous, I let it restart and it went on to OS setup and things were fine for the time being. I used and setup the computer the rest of the day, installing my programs and games, etc, and shut it down that night. The next morning I wake up and turn it on, and again, it begin to boot, but suddenly restarts in the midst of it. Upon restarting it takes me to a black screen and says windows was unable to launch, and gives me the option of launching repair program, or starting windows normally, I launch the repair program, it goes through and scans, it find no problems, and finishes booting the computer up like there was nothing ever wrong to begin with.

Fast forward to May and everything had been just fine and dandy. Computer had been running like a dream and doing what I needed done without any further problems. Until suddenly one day, the computer is idling, and it just randomly restarts! I found this very odd, and waited to see some kind of error screen, but nothing came up. It just restarted and went on it like normal. I logged back onto the computer and right away went and checked my the system temperatures, all were good (the highest it showed was around 38C), Fans were running at good speed, etc. I ran a virus and spyware scan as well, which came up negative. I shut down the computer and opened it up and made sure everything was firmly locked in and nothing had come loose, everything was solid. Brushed it off and went on about my business, and about 2 hours later I am surfing the net, ANOTHER random restart... Went through the routine again, NO error screens or prompts what so ever. This starts to happen on and off, about once a week for a bit, and I began calling Dell and looking into what the problem may be, obviously it isn't normal, but I have no errors coming up or being logged for me to follow.

Fast forward to the Present! At this point my computer is to where it will restart a minimum of 3 times a day. I have had it randomly restart up to 22 times a day. I have contacted dell support 7 times. The lastest thing I was told was that my HDD's were not setup in a raid configuration and therefore that is why my computer was randomly restarting. So they walk me through backing all my stuff up and reformatting (I had tried reformatting on 3 previous Dell support calls when they told me my OS was Corrupted, then my Drivers were Corrupted and and then the HDD was Corrupted and I needed a different one, which I had one to replace it with, none of this helped.) and have me do a mirrored raid configuration (I REALLY did not think this was the problem, but the guy argued with me for about 15 minutes). Still randomly restarts! All the fans are working correctly and well, including the ones on the CPU and Graphics Card, the power supply also seems to be working well. Graphics card and Memory are the only things I think can be responsible, but before I have to go and spend a few hundred dollars on replacing them, I would really like to be able to pin point which one it is. On top of that, If it is not them, it'll be rather disappointing to have to shell out the money for both and then it still not fix the problem, although I HAVE considered just getting an entirely new computer at one point when I got just horrendously ticked off when I was trying to finish an extremely important college project and the computer was restarting every 10-30minutes, but I feel a bit bad just dumping the one my mom and sister surprised me with out of generosity after about 5 months. It was a big deal for them to spend that amount of money and getting me a computer like that.

I am hoping someone can help me narrow down the problem I am having and help me figure out what I can do to maybe fix it! I am just totally lost and confused and Dell support have no idea what I am talking about when I explain it to them. I know the XPS 720 is now discontinued, the most irritating thing when I called Dell Support, is that they didn't seem to have ANY idea as to how the XPS 720 was set up! They were having me look for lights and buttons on the case that the XPS 720 DOES NOT have and were arguing with me when I told them my case didn't have them. I am at my wits end here!

**manic** · 08-13-2008, 04:28 AM

Dell was and is notorious for putting in weak power supplys. Go into
bios and see what voltages you are running. If bios does not have a
option for hardware monitoring, download everest, theres a free
download, see what voltages it reports. Could be flakey ram, try running
memtest, if it will stay on long enough. I would first check out the
power supply.

Amy571 · 08-13-2008, 01:51 PM

Ok, I will download and run Everest when I get home to check the voltages, I honestly did not think to check those.

Amy571 · 08-14-2008, 12:00 AM

I ran Everest and a few other programs (SiSandra and Speedfan) trying to check the voltage for my PSU, but it is not displaying them. I did some research on this and this seems to be common with Dell computers. They apparently do not equip them with a monitor for their PSU voltage as they do not see a reason why normal users would need this information.

My luck just keeps getting worse.

**manic** · 08-14-2008, 04:37 AM

With everest click on computer, on the tree, you will see a entry
called sensor, click on that wait a few seconds, then it will display
temps and voltages..

Amy571 · 08-14-2008, 02:32 PM

I just shows me a blank screen there. nothing comes up. I choose to do a quick report on sensors and this is what it gave me

The whole page looks like that.

**manic** · 08-14-2008, 02:50 PM

Well heck, try running memtest, one stick at a time. See what it
reports for your ram. Im still leaning toward a weak power supply.

**manic** · 08-15-2008, 05:40 AM

Try this, I havent used it, but was recommended.
http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

jimo · 08-15-2008, 12:01 PM

Had the same problem with a Packard bell, went through all the checks mentioned but had the same results, I upgraded the power supply but with no improvement. Got to the stage where I was going to bin it, last resort was to replace the CPU heat sink & fan when I removed the old one there was only a very small amount of heat sink compound on the CPU, cleaned it off put on a more generous amount put the old parts back & not had a restart since ( about 3 months )
Hope that helps Jim

P.s any one won't a heat sink & fan!!!

08-13-2008, 02:51 AM	#1 (permalink)
Amy571 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 4 OS: Vista Home SP 1	Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! I am getting absolutely desperate for some kind of information, any kind, on this problem I am having. Back in March my mother and sister were ever so kind as to surprise me and buy me a new Dell XPS 720 desktop after my computer had an unfortunate accident during a big move. This was a big spend for them at almost $2000, we just do not have that kind of money, so this computer is rather special to me in that they did this for me kind of spontaneously. From Day ONE there were some problems. Upon carefully removing my computer from the box and hooking it up, I went to turn it on for the first time. It begin to boot up, but suddenly stopped and restarted before continuing on and allowing me to setup the OS. Obviously this made me quite nervous, I let it restart and it went on to OS setup and things were fine for the time being. I used and setup the computer the rest of the day, installing my programs and games, etc, and shut it down that night. The next morning I wake up and turn it on, and again, it begin to boot, but suddenly restarts in the midst of it. Upon restarting it takes me to a black screen and says windows was unable to launch, and gives me the option of launching repair program, or starting windows normally, I launch the repair program, it goes through and scans, it find no problems, and finishes booting the computer up like there was nothing ever wrong to begin with. Fast forward to May and everything had been just fine and dandy. Computer had been running like a dream and doing what I needed done without any further problems. Until suddenly one day, the computer is idling, and it just randomly restarts! I found this very odd, and waited to see some kind of error screen, but nothing came up. It just restarted and went on it like normal. I logged back onto the computer and right away went and checked my the system temperatures, all were good (the highest it showed was around 38C), Fans were running at good speed, etc. I ran a virus and spyware scan as well, which came up negative. I shut down the computer and opened it up and made sure everything was firmly locked in and nothing had come loose, everything was solid. Brushed it off and went on about my business, and about 2 hours later I am surfing the net, ANOTHER random restart... Went through the routine again, NO error screens or prompts what so ever. This starts to happen on and off, about once a week for a bit, and I began calling Dell and looking into what the problem may be, obviously it isn't normal, but I have no errors coming up or being logged for me to follow. Fast forward to the Present! At this point my computer is to where it will restart a minimum of 3 times a day. I have had it randomly restart up to 22 times a day. I have contacted dell support 7 times. The lastest thing I was told was that my HDD's were not setup in a raid configuration and therefore that is why my computer was randomly restarting. So they walk me through backing all my stuff up and reformatting (I had tried reformatting on 3 previous Dell support calls when they told me my OS was Corrupted, then my Drivers were Corrupted and and then the HDD was Corrupted and I needed a different one, which I had one to replace it with, none of this helped.) and have me do a mirrored raid configuration (I REALLY did not think this was the problem, but the guy argued with me for about 15 minutes). Still randomly restarts! All the fans are working correctly and well, including the ones on the CPU and Graphics Card, the power supply also seems to be working well. Graphics card and Memory are the only things I think can be responsible, but before I have to go and spend a few hundred dollars on replacing them, I would really like to be able to pin point which one it is. On top of that, If it is not them, it'll be rather disappointing to have to shell out the money for both and then it still not fix the problem, although I HAVE considered just getting an entirely new computer at one point when I got just horrendously ticked off when I was trying to finish an extremely important college project and the computer was restarting every 10-30minutes, but I feel a bit bad just dumping the one my mom and sister surprised me with out of generosity after about 5 months. It was a big deal for them to spend that amount of money and getting me a computer like that. I am hoping someone can help me narrow down the problem I am having and help me figure out what I can do to maybe fix it! I am just totally lost and confused and Dell support have no idea what I am talking about when I explain it to them. I know the XPS 720 is now discontinued, the most irritating thing when I called Dell Support, is that they didn't seem to have ANY idea as to how the XPS 720 was set up! They were having me look for lights and buttons on the case that the XPS 720 DOES NOT have and were arguing with me when I told them my case didn't have them. I am at my wits end here! Last edited by Amy571; 08-13-2008 at 03:00 AM.

08-13-2008, 04:28 AM	#2 (permalink)
manic Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 5,245 OS: xp	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! Dell was and is notorious for putting in weak power supplys. Go into bios and see what voltages you are running. If bios does not have a option for hardware monitoring, download everest, theres a free download, see what voltages it reports. Could be flakey ram, try running memtest, if it will stay on long enough. I would first check out the power supply. __________________

08-13-2008, 01:51 PM	#3 (permalink)
Amy571 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 4 OS: Vista Home SP 1	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! Ok, I will download and run Everest when I get home to check the voltages, I honestly did not think to check those.

08-14-2008, 12:00 AM	#4 (permalink)
Amy571 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 4 OS: Vista Home SP 1	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! I ran Everest and a few other programs (SiSandra and Speedfan) trying to check the voltage for my PSU, but it is not displaying them. I did some research on this and this seems to be common with Dell computers. They apparently do not equip them with a monitor for their PSU voltage as they do not see a reason why normal users would need this information. My luck just keeps getting worse.

08-14-2008, 04:37 AM	#5 (permalink)
manic Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 5,245 OS: xp	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! With everest click on computer, on the tree, you will see a entry called sensor, click on that wait a few seconds, then it will display temps and voltages.. __________________

08-14-2008, 02:32 PM	#6 (permalink)
Amy571 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 4 OS: Vista Home SP 1	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! I just shows me a blank screen there. nothing comes up. I choose to do a quick report on sensors and this is what it gave me The whole page looks like that.

08-14-2008, 02:50 PM	#7 (permalink)
manic Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 5,245 OS: xp	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! Well heck, try running memtest, one stick at a time. See what it reports for your ram. Im still leaning toward a weak power supply. __________________

08-15-2008, 05:40 AM	#8 (permalink)
manic Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 5,245 OS: xp	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! Try this, I havent used it, but was recommended. http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php __________________

08-15-2008, 12:01 PM	#9 (permalink)
jimo Registered User Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 2 OS: Vista SP1,XP Pro SP3	Re: Random System Restarts. Getting desperate for help! Had the same problem with a Packard bell, went through all the checks mentioned but had the same results, I upgraded the power supply but with no improvement. Got to the stage where I was going to bin it, last resort was to replace the CPU heat sink & fan when I removed the old one there was only a very small amount of heat sink compound on the CPU, cleaned it off put on a more generous amount put the old parts back & not had a restart since ( about 3 months ) Hope that helps Jim P.s any one won't a heat sink & fan!!!