My computer is rebooting alone. Please help

[shrapnel]

It's not the only possible reason.

Yeah, right. After he has finished trying all other suggestions, I suggest he go buy new RAM.

[RJN]

I would remove the RAM first, and reseat, along with all connectors, especially the PS connectors. They can oxidize over time. Make sure your PS is off via the hard switch before doing anything, not a soft-off.

If you are not handy with a 'scope, (possibly) try another PS first, or a spare, which is much cheaper than getting new RAM in a crapshot!

Also, try one of the numerous test utilities available (google is your friend in finding them), such as RealBench, MemTest, Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, etc. You can run the RealBench stress test, with RAM setting at max for your system, and it will keep checking the hash.

Good Luck, and please report back.

[Darkmoon]

If someone hasn't already suggested it, download memtest 86 and test your ram "individually" one stick at a time. It is time consuming but worth the effort.

First go into the bios and not whether your PSU is fluctuating. That may indicate a bad psu.

All it takes is one stick to go south of cheese and you'll have crashes. A bad psu can fry your board.


http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

[shrapnel]

I would remove the RAM first, and reseat, along with all connectors, especially the PS connectors. They can oxidize over time. Make sure your PS is off via the hard switch before doing anything, not a soft-off.

If you are not handy with a 'scope, (possibly) try another PS first, or a spare, which is much cheaper than getting new RAM in a crapshot!

Also, try one of the numerous test utilities available (google is your friend in finding them), such as RealBench, MemTest, Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, etc. You can run the RealBench stress test, with RAM setting at max for your system, and it will keep checking the hash.

Good Luck, and please report back.

Finally some sensible advice, most of the previous posters were talking nonsense.
I'm 100 % sure its a RAM problem.
Yes, of course, if cleaning and re-seating the RAM solves the problem, he will be very lucky ! But my experience tells me that once such problems start occurring, it is already too late. But, of course, he should give it a try.

[Graham Banks]

I would remove the RAM first, and reseat, along with all connectors, especially the PS connectors. They can oxidize over time. Make sure your PS is off via the hard switch before doing anything, not a soft-off.

If you are not handy with a 'scope, (possibly) try another PS first, or a spare, which is much cheaper than getting new RAM in a crapshot!

Also, try one of the numerous test utilities available (google is your friend in finding them), such as RealBench, MemTest, Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, etc. You can run the RealBench stress test, with RAM setting at max for your system, and it will keep checking the hash.

Good Luck, and please report back.

Finally some sensible advice, most of the previous posters were talking nonsense.
I'm 100 % sure its a RAM problem.
Yes, of course, if cleaning and re-seating the RAM solves the problem, he will be very lucky ! But my experience tells me that once such problems start occurring, it is already too late. But, of course, he should give it a try.

Probably is the RAM, but sometimes it can be the CPU.
I've had both happen.

[lucasart]

Hello.....
Me asking for help
My computer is crashing during my engine Rodin testing. I have not seen it: I left the computer running long testing tournaments, and after four to eight hours and after a lot of fast games, I see the computer restarted and the desktop screen. I dont know what is causing the reboots, but I know is not any new feature of my engine because I have tested it with old versions which went good in the past. I have not changed nothing in the configuration: no new engines, no new software, no antivirus, no internet connection, no unnecesary services, ..... nothing special.
When restarted, I cann't see any windows log about what could happen, but I see an entry that say the computer has restarted and was not clean rebooted last time: a sympton of an unknow crash I think, maybe a hardware problem. The computer has only two years old.
I ask here if somebody can advise me on how to localize the error, what is causing the problem and try to fix this issue. Now I have an unoperative computer
Thank you very much
Fermin

Maybe your CPU overheats, which triggers a BIOS reboot (safety mechanism).

Perhaps you should dust your CPU fan area, or move your computer in such a way that it can breathe better.

It happens to me from time to time.

[Darkmoon]

"My computer is crashing during my engine Rodin testing. I have not seen it..."

The first thing you need to do is witness the crash! Is what's happening a
" bluescreen of death" or is it just popping off into chronic reboots?

A cpu/mobo (hardware) will leave you glitching backing into a bluescreen everytime you reboot-a bad ram stick will periodically glitch you back into a bluescreen . Bad Psu can glitch out your graphics card drivers and create a blackscreen.

In short you don't know what the hell is going on until you've at least witness it.

ARE YOU OVERCLOCKING?

[Darkmoon]

Hello.....
Me asking for help
My computer is crashing during my engine Rodin testing. I have not seen it: I left the computer running long testing tournaments, and after four to eight hours and after a lot of fast games, I see the computer restarted and the desktop screen. I dont know what is causing the reboots, but I know is not any new feature of my engine because I have tested it with old versions which went good in the past. I have not changed nothing in the configuration: no new engines, no new software, no antivirus, no internet connection, no unnecesary services, ..... nothing special.
When restarted, I cann't see any windows log about what could happen, but I see an entry that say the computer has restarted and was not clean rebooted last time: a sympton of an unknow crash I think, maybe a hardware problem. The computer has only two years old.
I ask here if somebody can advise me on how to localize the error, what is causing the problem and try to fix this issue. Now I have an unoperative computer
Thank you very much
Fermin

If you are overclocking reset all your parameters back into default.

[Kempelen]

Finally the problem looks is gone.

First I cleaned the inner of the chasis with air compressed, but that didn't solve it. Then I unmount all components and make a deep clean one by one, and then mount all again, asuring all connections were ok. From that, one day and a half ago, there have not been crashes yet. Cross fingers

My tournament report says the cpu temperature is around 5 C less that it was usual a few days ago. Dont know if that have something to do.

Thanks all for your support.

[RJN]

Finally the problem looks is gone.

First I cleaned the inner of the chasis with air compressed, but that didn't solve it. Then I unmount all components and make a deep clean one by one, and then mount all again, asuring all connections were ok. From that, one day and a half ago, there have not been crashes yet. Cross fingers

My tournament report says the cpu temperature is around 5 C less that it was usual a few days ago. Dont know if that have something to do.

Thanks all for your support.

Great news! BTW, oxidized connectors can cause increased electrical resistance, so that and the dust may have contributed to higher temps.

I have some pinball machines (my other hobby is restoring them), and about once a year I must remove and replug connectors, even after I had replaced many of the older cheap single contact pins with good quality 3 contact ones.....go figure. The process of unplugging and replugging scraps some of the oxidation off (if that was your issue). I also find ribbon cables need replugging every so often on my pinball machines.

FWIW, I have never had bad RAM, but maybe I am lucky! I have had bad RAM sockets (or maybe the solder joints on the traces to them, same difference in the end) that were intermittent though. Swapping the RAM sticks around showed that to be the case. Of course solder joints on the RAM sticks can also cause issues too, if you are unlucky. I do not think the actual chips on RAM wear out, but it's the "infrastructure" connections supporting them that are the issue to my understanding, but same difference again if a stick does go bad.

Rule of electronics I have learned over time: it's hard to keep a good connection, but easy to get shorts from the smallest of things!

Hopefully, your actions did not just temporarily solve an intermittent due to moving things around (bad solder joints are notorious for this, a slight pressure on them may "fix" the problem for a period of time).