Rebooting computer - I have tried everything I know

My computer:

Win XP Pro
GA-7VAX motherboard (made by gigabyte)
AMD Athlon 2100+ (1.7 ghz)
266 fsb
512 DDR 233
400watt Antec power supply
LeadTek geforce 4 ti4600 graphics
seagate 80 gb 7200 rpm hd
seagate 40 gb 7200 rpm

My computer randomly restarts and I have been unable to figure out why. It is not overheating - I am running at 45 c tops. The thing that is most confusing is that sometimes it will run fine for a few months and then begin restarting randomly again. Usually is restarts when I have it on but I am not activly using it, and then restarts before even finishing POST a few times, then goes back to os. I have had this problem while using winxp, win2k, and mandrake9. The other thing that is very confusing is that when I am using it the most common time it restarts is when use the mouse to scroll down a page. I move the wheel one click and it restarts. That is not what always causes it...just some of the time.

As you can see, this is a pain in the ass and I have no idea what to do about it. I have checked all connections, even went so far as to take everything out of the box and rebuild it. During that I took the heatsink off the processor and cleaned both, then put more thermal paste. It still restarts.

Any help would be great.

.Sy.

Although I had a little bit of different problem, Nihil and I spent a long time troubleshooting my pc and many appropriate solutions for your issue may be found in the posts. The link is below.

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=258263

You'll find hardware info, bios settings, and a whole gambit of info. Hopefully it will be helpful

cheers

I have tried everything that was mentioned except for the RAM defragmentor. I turn my computer off every night - and sometimes it restarts 5 minutes after beeing booted the next day. I don't think ram is the problem, but I will try that anyway. I am really curious about the mouse scrolling. If anyone knows why scrolling my mouse could cause my computer to restart I would appreciate an answer.

Hi

The Rebooting Might be cause by varity of Reasons ...It Might be Hardware ,Software,, or a Virus or Over Heating

Blaster

It might be Blaster...press Ctrl+Alt+Del and see if there is MSBlast.exe running in the process window


It might be realted to some software or device driver generating some error.Errors generated by software programs can cause a computer to reboot unexpectedly or without warning.....So it might be software related problem..Wndows XP and windows 2K are designed to reboot Automatecally when a system lavel error occurs.....Try disabling the Automatecally Reboot Feature and see what the error is

• From the desktop right click on My Computer.
  
• Click the Properties option.
  
• In the System Properties window click the Advanced tab.
  
• In Advanced click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery.
  
• In the Startup and Recovery window uncheck the Automatically restart check box.
  
• Click Ok.

Any Malfunctioning Hardware componebnt can cause the Computer to Reboot without warning......i had a RAM strip that was not working properly and it sometimes caused the computr to reboot and some other times it worked just fine for days alltogether.......

If you have recently added any new hardware and remember that this problem started after you added any new hardware then try remove the new hardware and see if it helps......also have you updated new device/hardware drivers to the existing Hardware ..........



Bacically it might be anything ........You would have to carefully and patiently Dignoose the problem first try to dignaose if the Problem Software or Hardware related or if it is a Worm and then proced from there.....i know troubleshooting is a frustrating and tireing job:( thats why is moved to programming :)


--Good Luck--

Try running Housecall (free antivirus scanner from Trend Micro) http://housecall.trendmicro.com/hous...start_corp.asp

and Spybot Search and Destroy to make sure you are virus and scumware free.

I believe that there are several viruses that will reboot your computer.

Yeah, to second what CXGJarrod said, lot's of worm's and viruses these day's will reboot your computer in order for it's full effect to take place. So scan your computer for those type of thing's as well as trojan's. For a good trojan scanner, go to http://swatit.org

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If anyone knows why scrolling my mouse could cause my computer to restart I would appreciate an answer.

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The scroll wheel might also be a third mouse button (clickable)........................check if this is the case and what it is set to do.

just a thought

I had the same problem once upon a time. After many frustrating fixes that were actually failures, a simple reseating of my RAM (also blew the slots out while the RAM was removed) solved the problem.

my problem is kinda like his except of rebooting mine just shuts down and the power light is flahing orange...that was about a few days ago and it seems its good now, probably was just the heat i guess

Must surely be a hardware problem, as you have seen the same symptoms on different OSs.

I too have once seen this caused by a problem with the RAM - in this case it generated unusual BSODs under WinXP - something to do with a paging/memory error when I looked it up which was a big hint :). Yes, those BSOD screens can be useful ...

As well as blowing the dust out of the case, I also took the precaution of cleaning the edge connectors on the RAM strip, as they looked slightly dirty. You can use any type of neat (or nearly neat) alcohol to this - in extremis you can even use something like Vodka, as it has no sugar content :D

Thank you for all the help. For those who said virus or worm - perhaps you missed the part where I mentioned that sometimes it reboots before finished posting. I reseated my ram and it has not restarted since.

.Sy.

Glad you found it. Reseating the ram heh? Thanks be to allenb1963 for the recommendation. I'll have to do that right away, clean out the slots and log it as well ;) .

Just don't think I could bring myself to use the Vodka to cleanse the Ram though. I'd drink it before it could find it's way onto the sticks. Since I have to watch the sweets and

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...it has no sugar content

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:eek:

cheers

.Sy. ....glad I was able to help sort this one out. It's rewarding to see my mental note taking pay off from time to time. The fee for my assistance is cheap...remember this lesson, share it with whomever needs it in the future and you can consider your debt paid!