Reboot Madness

[Accessless]

I have totally run out of idea's on this problem I've been having. Completely randomly my computer will show a garbled image on the screen and reboot, it could be whilst playing a graphics intensive game or simply browsing on the internet. Also the amount of occurrences are random, some days it will do it several times other days not at all. I can't find a problem with anything and to be honest I've run out of ideas on what to check. I can't duplicate the problem at will and even if I could I have no way of recording what happened.

So far I can tell you what it's not:

An overheating issue (occurs at full and minimum load, also tested)
The graphics card directly [I still believe this to be at the core of the problem, although I don't know how] (I have run stress tests and a memory test all came back good)
RAM memory (stress tested and read/write test)
CPU (stress tested)
Hard drive (sea tools tested and wouldn't cause the problem anyway)

That leaves power, BIOS &/or motherboard, drivers, windows.

Any ideas on how to test a BIOS or what, if any, drivers are causing a problem? Or if anything else comes to mind. (It's my profile computer btw)
My Cmos battery is running a little low, but that wouldn't cause these sorts of problems would it?

Please help, this is driving me mental.

[nixie]

Are you protected behind a UPS ( Battery Backup ) so that if you have any dips in power your system is not affected? Guessing you have looked in the bios at the voltages of your PSU to make sure they all look good and hold steady?

In the past I have had mainly power supply or dirty power (lack of UPS) cause reboots, but... the garbled graphics I have only seen in failing GPU's. If you have a spare video card you can try swapping it out, otherwise if your motherboard has integrated video, try that and see if you have different results... However games probably wouldnt run well or at all with integrated video.

[[email protected]]

Forgive my lack of being very instructed in the IT or system units. Just a stab here, for sure. How about running a good malware, spyware, or virus scan? Hope you are not offended by the suggestion.
Den.

[lectrocrew]

I agree with [email protected].
If you don't find a solution after trying what nixie and [email protected] suggested you may want to start a new topic in the Computer viruses and spyware section.
Good luck. 
Mike

[Geek-9pm]

See if  you can divide the problem.
For example, boot the thing with a memory test program and  see if it finds anything. It can take  hours and hours. The memory test does not need Windows components. If it runs good, that wood indicate that it is not a hardware issue, at least not with the basic CPU and RAM operations.

[Accessless]

(Replies in no particular order.)

Forgive my lack of being very instructed in the IT or system units. Just a stab here, for sure. How about running a good malware, spyware, or virus scan? Hope you are not offended by the suggestion.
Den.

I agree with [email protected].
If you don't find a solution after trying what nixie and [email protected] suggested you may want to start a new topic in the Computer viruses and spyware section.
Good luck. 
Mike

Sorry I was supposed to include that on the "what it's not" list. I run malware scans automatically, I don't usually notice them anymore (last week it found something it didn't like apparently).

See if  you can divide the problem.
For example, boot the thing with a memory test program and  see if it finds anything. It can take  hours and hours. The memory test does not need Windows components. If it runs good, that wood indicate that it is not a hardware issue, at least not with the basic CPU and RAM operations.

As I've already stated all tests on the CPU, RAM & graphics card came back clean.

Are you protected behind a UPS ( Battery Backup ) so that if you have any dips in power your system is not affected? Guessing you have looked in the bios at the voltages of your PSU to make sure they all look good and hold steady?

In the past I have had mainly power supply or dirty power (lack of UPS) cause reboots, but... the garbled graphics I have only seen in failing GPU's. If you have a spare video card you can try swapping it out, otherwise if your motherboard has integrated video, try that and see if you have different results... However games probably wouldnt run well or at all with integrated video.

The other computers in the house are unaffected, however I wouldn't like to rule out my power supply as a suspect. as for the GPU all tests came back clean. no integrated graphics but I do have an old Geforce 7900 for testing purposes, the only problem is that I have no control or even idea when the fault is going to occur. I could be using it for a week and have no idea if the problem went away.


I do have another theory though due to my latest encounter with the ASUS website. I noticed that they do not provide any Windows 7 support for this motherboard (they usually provide drivers, even if they are copies of the Vista drivers). When I upgraded to a x64 OS I had major stability issues until I upgraded the BIOS (Win7 was my first x64 OS). So this could be the problem child motherboard again. If so thank god that I'm replacing this rig in April/May maybe earlier depending on the release date of the Ivy bridge CPU's.

Come to think of it this computer has a copy of XP x86, and i think that the problem doesn't occur whilst running that (however I don't run it frequently and even when I do, not for very long periods of time).

[Geek-9pm]

Come to think of it this computer has a copy of XP x86, and i think that the problem doesn't occur whilst running that (however I don't run it frequently and even when I do, not for very long periods of time).

Well, you said it. 

[Accessless]

It has now randomly stopped... I have changed nothing... Maybe the power is fluctuating and I have a sensitive power supply. I'll re-address it when it comes back.

[Geek-9pm]

It is well documented that Windows 7 64 bit has to have 64bit drivers.

How much memory do you have?

Also, a non-complaint software driver may allow the system to work for a long time before something bad happens.

[Salmon Trout]

My computer (Shuttle SN78SH7, 4 GB DDR2 in 2 sticks) started do something very similar, quite often, and it turned out to be the RAM timings in the BIOS. The SDRAM Trfc setting to be precise. It was set to the shortest time possible 75 nS and I increased it to 105 nS and it's been OK for 6 months now. Some people on Shuttle boards said go further, to 127.5, but I am fine as I am. It seemed thermal related, in that heavy load and/or warm weather made it happen sooner, so I'm thinking the initial Trfc setting was very nearly OK for the sticks I am using and the extra heat was pushing the RAM to the edge. I'm not saying your instability is caused by exactly the same thing but BIOS RAM settings are something to think about especially in a case of occasional instability.

[Accessless]

I have an update! It's not the power supply...

My computer (Shuttle SN78SH7, 4 GB DDR2 in 2 sticks) started do something very similar, quite often, and it turned out to be the RAM timings in the BIOS. The SDRAM Trfc setting to be precise. It was set to the shortest time possible 75 nS and I increased it to 105 nS and it's been OK for 6 months now. Some people on Shuttle boards said go further, to 127.5, but I am fine as I am. It seemed thermal related, in that heavy load and/or warm weather made it happen sooner, so I'm thinking the initial Trfc setting was very nearly OK for the sticks I am using and the extra heat was pushing the RAM to the edge. I'm not saying your instability is caused by exactly the same thing but BIOS RAM settings are something to think about especially in a case of occasional instability.

(Sorry this reply is so late, I thought that the topic was dead before you posted) Ram timings does sound like a good thing to play with but my BIOS does not seem to contain anything much in the way of RAM settings. Which seems odd.

[Accessless]

11 Month Reboot!

Yes that's right this problem went on for this long almost. I replaced my mobo and cpu. The problem has gone.

The question is when I put the old mobo and CPU in another computer will the problem have magicaly disapeared altogether? Probably, cos thats just how computers role.


[Now if I can just work out why this new computer makes very quite alarm clock noises my life will be perfect]