Comp restarted on it's own

[Gig-O-Ram]

I was actually in here a few minutes ago, looking at the Raffle/Donation thread, and as I was typing a reply, my machine took it upon itself to shut down real quick and restart. I got the "System has recovered from a serious error" message, and things seem okay, but...

What would cause this? I was ripping a CD at the time, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it...

[garetjax]

Originally Posted by Gig-O-Ram

I was actually in here a few minutes ago, looking at the Raffle/Donation thread, and as I was typing a reply, my machine took it upon itself to shut down real quick and restart. I got the "System has recovered from a serious error" message, and things seem okay, but...

What would cause this? I was ripping a CD at the time, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it...

I would start asking and researching these questions in order to pinpoint your problem:

1) How many times has this happened before?
2) When it does happen, is it always during the same activity, for example, burning CD's.
3) What kind of case temps are you running in your system?
4) When is the last time you cleaned the inside of your case?
5) When is the last time you ran MemTest86 on your RAM?
6) Did you uninstall or reinstall updated (or outdated) drivers for any of your components?

[Gig-O-Ram]

Originally Posted by garetjax

I would start asking and researching these questions in order to pinpoint your problem:

1) How many times has this happened before?
2) When it does happen, is it always during the same activity, for example, burning CD's.
3) What kind of case temps are you running in your system?
4) When is the last time you cleaned the inside of your case?
5) When is the last time you ran MemTest86 on your RAM?
6) Did you uninstall or reinstall updated (or outdated) drivers for any of your components?

1) This is the first time it's happened on this fresh install of XP. I seem to recall it happening once a long time ago, but I can't be sure of that.
2) This is hard to answer. It happened to occur when I was doing something with a CD, but beyond that, I don't know.
3) (in °C) MoBo: 37° - CPU: 32° - NB: 43° - GPU: 39° - Hdds: 37-39° Case is open right now, ambient room temp 77°F
4) Last week (and really thorough, too)
5) Probably a year ago when I built the system
6) I installed updated drivers for both chipset and GPU when I reinstalled XP, from a total HDD wipe.

[Panda Man]

If this is only the first time its happens, I'd just wave it off, just a glitch somewhere that windows hit (normally happens during a memory failure). If it happens often, then you got a problem.

EDIT - Now that I think about it, this only happened to me during a bad OC, and loosening the RAM timings fixed it.

[garetjax]

Originally Posted by Gig-O-Ram

1) This is the first time it's happened on this fresh install of XP. I seem to recall it happening once a long time ago, but I can't be sure of that.
2) This is hard to answer. It happened to occur when I was doing something with a CD, but beyond that, I don't know.
3) (in °C) MoBo: 37° - CPU: 32° - NB: 43° - GPU: 39° - Hdds: 37-39° Case is open right now, ambient room temp 77°F
4) Last week (and really thorough, too)
5) Probably a year ago when I built the system
6) I installed updated drivers for both chipset and GPU when I reinstalled XP, from a total HDD wipe.

As far as number 5 goes, I would run Memtest86 for maybe an hour or two (or while you're asleep) and see what happens. Were there any errors with your RAM the last time you ran it? Also, it wouldn't hurt to ensure that all your cards are securely installed. Maybe just give them a quick going through to make sure they are all snug in their mobo slots, nothing is loose. It sounds to me like this may be an isolated issue... unless you start getting random reboots more frequently, I would say that there really is nothing you can do at this point other than what I listed above.

*EDIT* How is your PSU? Have you had any power problems with it or your system? Small brown-outs, total outtages, anything like that?

[Gig-O-Ram]

Originally Posted by garetjax

As far as number 5 goes, I would run Memtest86 for maybe an hour or two (or while you're asleep) and see what happens. Were there any errors with your RAM the last time you ran it? Also, it wouldn't hurt to ensure that all your cards are securely installed. Maybe just give them a quick going through to make sure they are all snug in their mobo slots, nothing is loose. It sounds to me like this may be an isolated issue... unless you start getting random reboots more frequently, I would say that there really is nothing you can do at this point other than what I listed above.

*EDIT* How is your PSU? Have you had any power problems with it or your system? Small brown-outs, total outtages, anything like that?

When I put the system together initially, I did run Memtest86 from BIOS (not a utility), and I ran it for, geez, quite a while and had no issues at all. As for the various cards, secure fastening COULD be an issue, as I took everything out of the case to give it a good clean out...and I mean everything, including RAM. I did have to remove the video card and a USB card to make getting the board out, and removal of the HSF easier. Of course, this means having to put them back, and it's possible something may be loose. However, I am going to be partially dismantling the system again in a week or so to install a new fan controller, so I can check for tightness at that time.

My PSU has always been problem free for the most part, with the exception that a few rails have small drops in voltage that they maybe shouldn't have, but nothing that creates any real problems, even with my overclock - ex: the +12V normally runs between 11.61v and 11.71v. I suspect that the pot could do with an adjustment to fix that.