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Author Topic: Random crashes & reboots  (Read 4609 times)

ianeggbert

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Random crashes & reboots
« on: February 01, 2009, 10:47:28 PM »

Evening all

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water...........!
PC taken into repairers last week due to it spontaneously crashing and rebooting with no warning, blue screen etc. It started happening out of the blue a couple of weeks ago for no reason that I'm aware of. I've not installed any new hardware or made any radical changes. Ran Kaspersky check and nothing picked up and AdAware just to double check and rid malware etc.

Guys in repairers said theyve tested all hardware and found no problems and have reinstalled Windows XP Media - I picked it up on friday and guess what - its doing exactly the same again! If the pros havent sorted it then I've got no chance!

Could this be a power issue or something more sinister? Any ideas as alwats greatfully received

Many thanks in advance

IAN
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oldfogy

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2009, 11:25:56 PM »

Hopefully it might point towards the culprit.
I had this type of problem twice before.

Depending on how heavy my usage was at the time, sometimes it would go for a couple of days before the BSOD or re-start.

My problem turned out to be a faulty fan on the graphics card.
(But yes it could also be the fan inside the PSU)

Once I changed the graphics card there was no problem for a long time, but it then re-occurred so this time I changed only the fan, which was obtained from Maplin Electronics and it has now been working fine for the last 2 years  :fingers:

If you open up the PC case and see if the fan rotates fairly easily.
The warmer the card gets then the more likely it is that the fan stops working, thus creating a shut-down of the PC.
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kitz

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #2 on: February 02, 2009, 11:57:40 AM »

I too have suffered in the past from unexplained BSODs - well actually it mostly black screened and rebooted without warning.
There was no pattern to it, but most times it would occur if I had several apps open.   Like OF's mine was the graphics card getting too hot.
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ianeggbert

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #3 on: February 02, 2009, 05:11:58 PM »

Thanks for the responses - I am going to bear this in mind in my investigations. The only thing is that these random crashes can happen a very short time after I've turned the PC on - and on a couple of ocasions have happened immediately after start up so I'm not sure if the graphics card would have time to have got too hot.

Is there a possibility that another peripheral could be casing the crashes (I know its not the printer as this wasnt plugged in at one point) - the only other items I have are monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse and a 5.1 speaker set up plugged into a safety power strip - oh and the router of course

I dont really want to take it back to the repairers again if i can posibly help it and hate being beaten by this thing! :-)
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camallison

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #4 on: February 02, 2009, 05:29:32 PM »

Not sure how old your PC is, but could the CMOS battery be drained?  Seen symptoms such as yours in such a case.
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ianeggbert

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2009, 05:36:10 PM »

PC only a couple of years old
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oldfogy

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2009, 05:46:37 PM »


Is there a possibility that another peripheral could be casing the crashes

Yes it is always possible, but until you have ruled out what some/most people may say is the obvious, then it's a hit-n-miss as what to suggest next.

It's highly unlikely to be the CMOS battery, as the PC has by this time already accessed and past that point of the system.
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Floydoid

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #7 on: February 03, 2009, 01:01:06 PM »

It could be overheating - have you given it a good clean out inside?
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ianeggbert

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2009, 01:04:12 PM »

Internally all clean

I do take on board the overheating suggestions, but the problem sometimes happens immediately on start-up when I assume the machine is still cold

many thanks for all your suggestions so far - i had no reboots at all last night (computer was on for 5 hours)
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BritBrat

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #9 on: February 03, 2009, 01:30:45 PM »

Does this happen when using CDrom?

If so do you have "Patin Couffin" driver on your system.

I had this and after a few system restores, hardware changes I found out it was related to CD burning/copying software divers.

Only took me about three weeks to sort it and even bought new hardware.

Do you have any of these installed?
http://www.vso-software.fr/products.php
« Last Edit: February 03, 2009, 01:33:22 PM by BritBrat »
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ianeggbert

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #10 on: February 03, 2009, 01:41:07 PM »

Hi Brit Brat

The problem happens when I'm not using my CDrom and I dont have any of the listed software installed. Bearing in mind this happened shortly after the repairers had reinstalled Windows and tested the hardware I'm not sure that it's a software issue (although again given my level of knowledge on these things I could be wrong!)

I'm going to keep going with my "trial and error" technique at the moment until I can narrow the culprit down!
regards

IAN
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ianeggbert

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Re: Random crashes & reboots
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2009, 12:29:45 PM »

As an update - I had a week free of any crashes or reboots and then suddenly on Friday it started all over again and has been doing this all weekend.

Really infuriating now! Back into the repairers tomorrow I think
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