PC Restarting By Itself (even after new HDD and rebuild)

[HtV]

i don't know if you are still using mbm, if you are you should check the config of it, because the temps can't be right. The case temp and the cpu temp can't be the same.

[mixedup]

Must admit whilst I've run it up I haven't had a chance to interpret the logs or read the manual - thanks for the pointer, will have to do this. Here's an excert from the log

+---------------+---------------+----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| | | | Case | CPU | Sensor 3 | Core 0 | Core 1 | +3.3 | +5.00 | +12.00 | -12.00 | -5.00 | Fan 1 | Fan 2 | Fan 3 |
+---------------+---------------+----------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
| 5/2/2006 | 11:18:00 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.78 V | 1.78 V | 3.26 V | 5.08 V | 11.49 V | -12.01 V | -5.04 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2537 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:17:30 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.78 V | 1.78 V | 3.26 V | 5.08 V | 11.49 V | -12.01 V | -5.04 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2537 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:17:00 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.78 V | 1.78 V | 3.28 V | 5.08 V | 11.49 V | -12.01 V | -5.04 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2537 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:16:30 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.78 V | 1.78 V | 3.28 V | 5.08 V | 11.49 V | -12.01 V | -5.04 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2537 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:16:00 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.71 V | 1.73 V | 3.28 V | 5.08 V | 11.49 V | -12.01 V | -5.04 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2537 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:15:30 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.78 V | 1.78 V | 3.28 V | 5.08 V | 11.49 V | -12.01 V | -5.04 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2537 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:15:00 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.73 V | 1.73 V | 3.25 V | 5.08 V | 11.37 V | -11.88 V | -4.98 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2518 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:14:30 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.74 V | 1.73 V | 3.25 V | 5.08 V | 11.37 V | -11.88 V | -4.96 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2500 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:14:00 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.73 V | 1.73 V | 3.25 V | 5.08 V | 11.37 V | -11.88 V | -4.98 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2518 RPM |
| 5/2/2006 | 11:13:30 PM | 1613 MHz | 35° C | 35° C | 0° C | 1.71 V | 1.71 V | 3.26 V | 5.08 V | 11.37 V | -11.88 V | -4.98 V | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 2500 RPM |

[congenictv]

Must admit whilst I've run it up I haven't had a chance to interpret the logs or read the manual - thanks for the pointer, will have to do this. Here's an excert from the log

Well, the temps look reasonable to me. Are you still having random restarts? Did you check if your video card's fan and heatsinks are clean and running?

[A_Brass]

One problem/solution I didn't see anyone suggest was bad chipset drivers. I had a problem playing DVD's and windows would freeze or random reboot for months and I never could figure out what it was. I replaced the power supply with a larger one, I tried the rams sticks one by one, I scanned the HD for errors. Finally I was about to chuck the the damn thing when I downloaded and installed a newer mainboard chipset driver package. Via 4in1 back then. It did the trick the freezes and random reboots went away.

If I had to guess about your problem I would guess you have a power supply, random reboots are very common in a power supply that's starting to shit the bed. Especially if it comes and goes.

[mixedup]

Did you check if your video card's fan and heatsinks are clean and running?

Umm, no...I'll double check my reasonable new graphics card - I'm not even sure if it has a fan :o (Gigabyte N55256D FX5500 256mb 128BIT AGP8X DVI-PORT TVO TwinV)

One problem/solution I didn't see anyone suggest was bad chipset drivers. I had a problem playing DVD's and windows would freeze or random reboot for months and I never could figure out what it was. I replaced the power supply with a larger one, I tried the rams sticks one by one, I scanned the HD for errors. Finally I was about to chuck the the damn thing when I downloaded and installed a newer mainboard chipset driver package. Via 4in1 back then. It did the trick the freezes and random reboots went away.

Hadn't even thought about this - I'll check it out for my motherboard

If I had to guess about your problem I would guess you have a power supply, random reboots are very common in a power supply that's starting to shit the bed. Especially if it comes and goes.

Mine is a 350W powersupply - I might call the local shop and ask their advice re being enough for 2x300G HDDs + 2 x DVD Drives + Video Card + TV Tuner Card + 4 port USB card. I'm not really sure how to tell if its one the way out?

BTW - PC has been up fine for about 1.5 days now. Last change I recall was noting that the 4port USB PCI card's correct drivers (i.e. with the supplied disk hadn't been installed). Prior to this in the DEVICES panel there was a YELLOW warning sign against the USB device (it was working but only with USB1.1 type speeds not USB2.0). I updated the drivers in an attempt to get the normal USB2.0 speed out of those ports, and it did fix this. Whether this could have been the cause of the instability I'm not sure?

[HtV]

Well, the temps look reasonable to me.

It may not be really important anymore but I have to repeat: In my opinion the case-temp and cpu-temp can't be the same.

[DronnyBoyd]

If its a memory issue, memtest86 will find it. You download an ISO CD image, and write it to a CD (it creates a bootable CD). Reboot your PC with the memtest CD and it will run continuous tests and find your memory problems (if they exist).

On the other hand, like the earlier poster, I found that my reboots were caused by the crappy cheapo case fan (after spending £50 on a new PSU, twice the price I paid for the entire case including its original PSU). Took the fan out (must have been about £0.50 worth!) replaced it with a decent Antec one, all is well, plus I've got a decent power supply unit (that I didn't really need) and now my PVR is working happily again.

[Lindsay]

No one has mentioned checking the mobo electrolytic capacitors. Your board is a few years old and MANY boards made around 3 yrs ago are now failing because of the bad caps installed. I have seen bulging caps in both mobos and video cards. Look here:- http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195

May be irrelevant but you need to rule this out.

[mixedup]

oh oh - another crash (had 2-3 days of up time) - I'll move onto that memory test suggested next. If you interested here's the output from wnidbg


Microsoft ® Windows Debugger Version 6.6.0003.5
Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


Loading Dump File [C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini050606-01.dmp]
Mini Kernel Dump File: Only registers and stack trace are available

Symbol search path is: SRV*c:\local cache*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
Executable search path is:
Windows XP Kernel Version 2600 (Service Pack 2) UP Free x86 compatible
Product: WinNt
Built by: 2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519
Kernel base = 0x804d7000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0x8055a420
Debug session time: Sat May 6 04:54:05.696 2006 (GMT+10)
System Uptime: 4 days 8:08:59.286
Loading Kernel Symbols
........................................................................................................................
Loading User Symbols
Loading unloaded module list
..................................................
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 50, {9869251b, 1, bf814412, 0}


Could not read faulting driver name
Probably caused by : win32k.sys ( win32k!RGNOBJ::vCopy+37 )

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

kd> !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (50)
Invalid system memory was referenced. This cannot be protected by try-except,
it must be protected by a Probe. Typically the address is just plain bad or it
is pointing at freed memory.
Arguments:
Arg1: 9869251b, memory referenced.
Arg2: 00000001, value 0 = read operation, 1 = write operation.
Arg3: bf814412, If non-zero, the instruction address which referenced the bad memory
address.
Arg4: 00000000, (reserved)

Debugging Details:
------------------


Could not read faulting driver name

WRITE_ADDRESS: 9869251b

FAULTING_IP:
win32k!RGNOBJ::vCopy+37
bf814412 89501c mov [eax+0x1c],edx

MM_INTERNAL_CODE: 0

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: DRIVER_FAULT

BUGCHECK_STR: 0x50

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 80523f44 to 8053331e

STACK_TEXT:
b6d44abc 80523f44 00000050 9869251b 00000001 nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x1b
b6d44b08 804e1718 00000001 9869251b 00000000 nt!MmAccessFault+0x6f5
b6d44b08 bf814412 00000001 9869251b 00000000 nt!KiTrap0E+0xcc
b6d44b9c bf8143a7 b6d44bf8 e2b47350 b6d44bec win32k!RGNOBJ::vCopy+0x37
b6d44bb0 bf8145d7 b6d44bf8 0104005a 00000000 win32k!RGNOBJ::bCopy+0x4c
b6d44bd0 bf8262cd b6d44bf8 bbed16c8 00000000 win32k!RGNOBJAPI::bCopy+0x23
b6d44c04 bf8158bf 09040ca1 0104005a 00000000 win32k!GreCombineRgn+0x50
b6d44c28 bf815c0b 00000000 0104005a 00001005 win32k!InternalInvalidate3+0xcf
b6d44c68 bf8156ca 00003005 0104005a 0104005a win32k!InternalInvalidate2+0x239
b6d44cb8 bf8154a3 bbed16c8 0104005a 00001005 win32k!xxxInternalInvalidate+0x118
b6d44ce4 bf8154e2 bbed16c8 b6d44d1c 00000000 win32k!xxxRedrawWindow+0x103
b6d44cfc bf81556d bbed16c8 b6d44d1c 00000001 win32k!xxxInvalidateRect+0x32
b6d44d50 804de7ec 003201f4 b6d44d1c 00000001 win32k!NtUserInvalidateRect+0x77
b6d44d50 7c90eb94 003201f4 b6d44d1c 00000001 nt!KiFastCallEntry+0xf8
WARNING: Frame IP not in any known module. Following frames may be wrong.
00221138 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 0x7c90eb94


STACK_COMMAND: .bugcheck ; kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
win32k!RGNOBJ::vCopy+37
bf814412 89501c mov [eax+0x1c],edx

FAULTING_SOURCE_CODE:


SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 3

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

SYMBOL_NAME: win32k!RGNOBJ::vCopy+37

MODULE_NAME: win32k

IMAGE_NAME: win32k.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 43446a58

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x50_W_win32k!RGNOBJ::vCopy+37

BUCKET_ID: 0x50_W_win32k!RGNOBJ::vCopy+37

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

[mixedup]

PS. Attached file include windbg "lmv" output