PC is always rebooting

[BooJew]

OK... So I need some help. Recently (over the past 2-3 months my PC has been rebooting for no good reason. I can just be sitting away surfing the net, playing a game, playing music, etc... and then all of sudden my PC starts to POST. I have no clue wat could be doing this.

I'm using an Athlon (slotA 650) with a FIC motherboard (cant remember which off the top of my head), w/ a Maxtor HD and a 250w PS.

Oh yea.. and windows XP Pro.

Has anyone seen this before? Or does anyone have any advice?

Thanks

[sho.gun]

if you right click my computer, click properties, hit the advanced tab, and click the Startup and Recovery settings button. Under system failure, you can uncheck the auto restart thing so next time you will see the blue screen pointing to a general direction of where you problems are coming from.

You can also send you minidump files (they are made everytime you comp crashes) to MS and have them analyze them for you and tell you what is causing the problem.

[sho.gun]

hmm can you run down a list of everything you're running on the comp? like fans, any lights, how many drives, dvd, any USB devices attached to it? To me it could be that your power supply isn't holdin up the duty anymore, i'd say get at least a 300W power supply.

[BooJew]

When it resets, its not like when it crashes... I dont get the BSOD.. it just instanty reboots. I will try your advice and see what happens.

I orginally thought it was my PS, but I wanted to double check.

Here's whats connected to my pc:

1 7200rpm 40gb Maxtor drive
1 8x4x32 cdrw
2 case fans
1 cpu fan
FIC motherboard
Athlon
Floppy drive
USB Printer (via USB Hub)
USB Mouse(via USB Hub)
SB Live
Asus GeforceMX2
Intel Pro/100
and of course the 250w PS hooked up to a Tripplite UPS

All this just started one night out of nowhere (as far as I can tell)


Thanks again!!

[sho.gun]

hmm it seems like you should be ok with a 250... but you are definitely cutting it close. Do you know anyone with say a 300 watt PSU? I say you give it a try and if that is the cause you can just buy a new one.

my next culprit would be drivers... did you install anything new before this started happening? Try chkdsk /f on your C drive also.

[BooJew]

I havent installed anything new in a while, but I will try all your advice and post my results.

Thanks

[sho.gun]

no problem :)

let us know how it went

[BabyJesusDC]

Check to make sure your AGP card is seated properly, I just had a similar problem with MY PC doing that last week. Took me forever to figure it out, but all it took was me stepping on the monitor wire slighty and BAM reboot. Seated it properly and everything is fine...

[coleslaw]

What kind of RAM are you using? If it's Crucial, there is a chance that it could be part of a bad batch of RAM. I have had this same problem: random reboots, etc. One stick of RAM just totally stopped working, but now it is back. Very strange. :hmm:

[Kevster]

Originally posted by sho.gun
hmm it seems like you should be ok with a 250... but you are definitely cutting it close. Do you know anyone with say a 300 watt PSU? I say you give it a try and if that is the cause you can just buy a new one.

my next culprit would be drivers... did you install anything new before this started happening? Try chkdsk /f on your C drive also.


If he has an Athlon 650 and a FIC SD-11, he'll definitely need to get a 300W PS. I had similar problems running mine on a 250 and had to get a 300. It was very stable after the PS upgrade.