[ortango]

Hey, this is my first post here, and I wasn't too sure which section this post belongs in most so i put it here.

The problem is basicly my computer will shutdown suddenly (like if there was a power outage), and then attempts to reboot, but never gets to the POST screen (doesn't even get to the gfx card identification screen that comes before post screen) and tries again.

here are some details...

This first started happening a few months ago, i was running on a gigbyte mobo w/ Q6600 4 gigs of memory, a geforce 9800gt (at 670mhz) and a couple sata hard drives. Nothing OC'd except a little on the gfx card, and i was using a 650 watt psu from bfg.
At this point i thought it was underpowered because i was also seeing slow seek times on the harddrives --- so i upgraded to a 750 watt corsair psu, and it had been running for awhile without the problem reoccuring (I should also say that memtest86 has always ran with no errors).
Today i got home form work and i saw it trying to reboot over and over again. aw shucks.

Now I'm thinking its either the motherboard or the graphics card.

Motherboard.
-When i turn some things off in bios (like virtualization technology) I have to switch the psu off or else it will try to reboot continuously (same problem and fix that i see when it shuts off spontaneously).
-Don't think its overheating; conky is running always and average temp on cpu is 38f over the 4 cores. The only thing that could happen is maybe its related to intense network usage and netcard is integrated onto mobo, maybe that can overheat?

Video card
-I Don't see that identification screen that usually comes before the POST when its stuck in its glitched out reboot cycle.
-Don't think its overheating either 52(idle)-60f(load), but either way the computer likes to shutdown when I'm asleep or at work, so its not got any kind of load.


I've looked in logs of any info on why the computer shutdown to begin with, and to me it looks like a power-outage (except there wasn't one).
I can usually have really long uptimes like a week if i want, so i don't think its got to do with how long its been on for.

If anyone has troubleshooting tips I'd love to hear em, cause I just don't know how to figure this out without some spare hardware.

 

[Tumbleweed36]

Just to be sure, check the bios for temperatures and voltages and report them back here. Some times aftermarket programs are not as accurate as the bios is in reporting those items.

Can you check to see how high temps get when you have the rig under stress? If not, then download and run SensorviewPro so we can do some comparisions. Use it by checking when first turning on and then after you have put the computer under stress. Comparisions might help us to find something.

 

[ortango]

I'm running linux so i'm not gonna be trying sensorviewpro -- but under stress i've never seen temps higher that 55c on the first core, which as far as i can tell is consistent with what bios reports (but comparisouns are made at idle temps).

case temp i dont check often, so i dont really have a baseline. but it's idling at like 29c, and under load for a shortwhile it only goes up a degree or 2.

By the way, i listed all the temps in the previous post as fahrenheit - but all where meant as celsius - ill fix my post.

Apparently the lights actually did flash yesterday so the shutdown is not a mystery anymore. But still i am wondering why its trying to reboot itself over and over, without success.

 

[Tumbleweed36]

It might be a wise idea to clear the CMOS to make sure during one of your power surges that something did not get unsaved in the bios setup menu. It can't harm anything and might get the ship right again in the best scenario. Might be worth a try to reset it back to the original settings.

 

[ortango]

yea actually i was clearing the cmos each time (even when the reboot problem happened from changing some bios settings) before i realized that switching the psu off did the trick anyway.

but anyways i tried that a bunch of times.

one thing i have not done is update the mobo bios. probably something i really should try, but i have to look into making a usb boot drive for it, cause dont have linux updaters.