Technician1

hello everyone.
Please forgive me for upping this thread ....

a friend of mine, fabio, is having a very surprising issue with computer rebooting suddenly, barely after a few minutes of starting any game

Software:
I have updated Windows to the latest SP3, updated the graphic card (e-GeForce 8800 GST), and even installed the very last package of DirectX from MS

Hardware:
Fabio has an excellent top quality 550W PowerSupply!
His PC is VERY well ventilated with huge fans almost on every spot
His PC is clean, no dust layers anywhere
His memory is high quality and 3 GB !!!

You can consult the Beladvisor report and the hardware monitors reports I am attaching for full information on the hardware and software (and their versions) installed on Fabio's PC

You can see that all the parameters look OK: CPU temperature, System temperature, etc...... nothing going above 43°C .....

I really worked for about 3 hours on this machine, but could not find why it is very suddenly rebooting, barely 2 minutes after starting a game... it is not one specific game.... we at least tried with two games ...

Any ideas?

If it is not the PowerSupply, not the heat, and not the drivers..... What could it be ????

One last note: Fabio played very well those same games on this computer before the whole system failed recently and we had to format and re-install windows.

Attached Files

reboots.zip (15.3 KB, 3 views)

SeanSpade

I see this as being correct.

__________________
"Artists use lies to tell the truth,
Politicians use lies to cover it up..."

Technician1

do you mean that that answer is also valid for the case of Fabio??

How could that be ??? the guy has a 550W PSU !!!

SeanSpade

Probably not, but maybe.
550w does not mean much depending on the brand.
I have gotten a 750 that I did not realize was failing until it finally did.
It can also be a conflict in hardware in a general sense.

ALL drivers have to be updated.
there has to be a certain output on the PSU 12v as well.
Mine is like 38a
but similar PSU's have 29a.
So I need full specs and whatnot.

__________________
"Artists use lies to tell the truth,
Politicians use lies to cover it up..."

Technician1

please see the files I attached.... they have full specs.

SeanSpade

PSU sticker specs.
Try clean install, Lol.
I see nothing wrong with your Belarc report.

__________________
"Artists use lies to tell the truth,
Politicians use lies to cover it up..."

Technician1

Clean Install..... yeah sure.

Sticker Specs..... hmmm.. what other than the 550W do you need to know?

there is a lot of tech data on it. copy it all ??????

Technician1

Please remember this guys.

justpassingby

Hi Technician1 !

Please don't hijack other user's threads. We prefer to keep on thread per user to prevent confusion so I moved your posts to a new thread.

The GeForce 8800GTS is a power hog and a 550W PSU may not be sufficient. What's the exact brand and model of the video card (nVidia is the chip maker, not the card manufacturer) ? 26A on the 12V rail are recommended for 8800GTX and 8800GTS, if your model is factory overclocked it may need more.

What's the exact brand and model of the 550W power supply and how many amps on the 12V rail ? Some poorly designed 550W power supplies have shown unable to sustain a 350W load, as SeanSpade said the brand does matter. Check this thread and the recommended power supplies at the end : Power Supply Information and Selection. Fabio's rig is in the power desktop computer class.

Also remember that each fan adds to the power load.

Enter the BIOS at startup (repeatedly press del at startup) and report your temps, fan speeds and voltages (+3.3, +5 and +12V) from there. Software readings within Windows can't always be trusted.

If there's no hardware monitor or pc health screen in the BIOS then download and install speedfan. You can set it to log your temps and voltages every 5 seconds in a file on the hard drive so when the computer crashes you can see what the last values were.

Random reboots nearly always cause errors in the file system. Go to start => run and type chkdsk c: /F. You'll be prompted to restart the computer and the hard drive wil be scanned at startup (won't take too long with only the /F parameter).

Browse to c:\windows\minidump and see if there are any .dmp files there. If there are no memory dump files right-click my computer => properties => advanced => settings under startup and recovery and make sure the system is set to write a small memory dump. Also untick automatically restart (see this pic). If these are already your settings or if with the new settings the computer keeps restarting without writing a memory dump then the issue is definitely hardware related. If there are any .dmp files in the minidump folder then zip them together and attach the .zip file to your next post.

Check the event viewer (start => run => eventvwr.msc) for errors happening at the time of the crashes. Double-click the error, click on the third button on the right (this copies the information in the memory) then right-click => paste that information here.

Btw here's your motherboard :
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?mo...11&l3=534&l4=0
It may not be what's causing your issues (a problem with the memory would cause a BSOD and a memory dump) but don't forget to check the motherboard's QVL (qualified vendors list) for the list of compatible memory modules before you buy RAM.

__________________

HJT - 5 steps against malware. Post your HijackThis log there and not here !
Posting system specs

Technician1

I really can't tell you how much I appreciate your great answer.

But how can we explain the fact that those same games did run very well on this computer before re-installing windows ?

justpassingby

Those games ran very well on his computer before the whole system failed. The system failed because there was an issue somewhere and it's probably that issue that prevents the game from working now. If a clean reinstallation of XP didn't solve the problem then the issue may be hardware related. An unsufficient power supply could have worked for some time but since the power load was too much for it to handle it eventually delivered wrong voltages and damaged some hardware part (the ram is usually the first part to go but you should get error messages like hell if a memory stick was failing), or its effiency decreased after being used a little above its capacities (high power loads will accelerate the capacitor aging process).

If you've formated and reinstalled we won't have access to the old error logs, but can you tell us more about the symptoms the computer was showing before you reinstalled XP ?

What do you mean by "updated the graphic card" ? Have you installed a new video card or simply updated the drivers for the 8800GTS that was already in the computer ?

Here are the latest nvidia drivers for that video card :
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_175.19_whql.html

DirectX 9.0c is included in XP SP2 and SP3, the only update you could have installed is this one : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en


Don't forget to answer all my other questions : brand and model of the power supply, brand and model of the video card, voltages in the BIOS, test the hard drive, upload the minidump files and check the event viewer for errors.

__________________

HJT - 5 steps against malware. Post your HijackThis log there and not here !
Posting system specs

Technician1

Yes, the partition holding windows became erroneously seen as "unformatted".

updated the BIOS on the graphic card.


And looked on the website of the manufacturer for the most recent version of the graphic card drivers and installed those.


when I downloaded the very last driver for Fabio's video card from nVidia website, the package installation process gave the error "installation cannot find compatible hardware" .....

When I installed the very last driver for that same video card from the manufacturer, the process went fine.

this could be a strong indicator that the problem might be related to the graphic card itself.

I am not right now behind Fabio's machine, but would give you all the other information as soon as I have it.

I can't thank you enough for the great help you are providing. thank you really so much.

justpassingby

You mean you flashed the video card's firmware ? This was probably not needed, depends on what is said in the release notes. I'll check that on the manufacturer's website as soon as I have the brand and model of the video card.

When a video card has been tweaked extensively by the manufacturer it's possible that the manufacturer's drivers work better than the regular drivers from nvidia, but it's the first time I hear the nvidia drivers couldn't install at all. In many cases you'll find that the manufacturer's drivers are outdated since they gradually stop supporting their older cards and focus on their newer models. Eventually you'll have to use the nvidia drivers with the latest games. Have you tried contacting the manufacturer's support line to ask them why the nvidia drivers won't work ?

Which means you couldn't boot in Windows at all or did you see that from within windows in the disk management utility ? If there was a drive or partition related issue you'd better run chkdsk c: /R instead of /F. It'll take longer but it'll check the drive for bad clusters. You may also want to create the DOS bootable CD with the HDD manufacturer's diagnostic utility to check the drive's mechanic parts. Had you installed any new program or gotten some error messages before you got that issue ?

I'll wait until you can provide the rest of the informations.

__________________

HJT - 5 steps against malware. Post your HijackThis log there and not here !
Posting system specs