Chronic Rebooting Problem

AND_YOU_ARE · Post by **AND_YOU_ARE** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 3:12 pm

Lately I have a persistent problem with my C2D system. My pc has has been randomly rebooting, this occurs when I browse the web with Firefox, running Azureus, watching a video file, running any source game, and other games. Just before the pc reboots there is distorted or paused audio from the task that was previsouly running, then the pc shuts down and boots back up.

My system is as follows: C2D E6400, Asus P5B-D, Muskin 2x1GB, Evga 7900gt, Audigy 2PTM, 2x Seagate 320GB 7200.10 Sata3.0, Seasonic s12-500. This is a new build from last September, and I only ran into problems in the last few weeks. I run Window XP Pro SP2, updated and clean. I thought the problem was a virus, so I ran AVG 7.5 on my system and it came up totally clean.

My next thought turned to a hardware problem, or power problem. My rails have been rock solid and consistent from the day I built the pc. My housemate bought a killawatt, and we tested the wattage used at idle and load. At idle the pc draws 210 watts, at load (dual prime 95, HDR stress test) the pc draws 285 watts. This leads me to believe my problem is not with my power supply. Nvidia hasn't updated their drivers since November, so I don't think its the video card. I updated my bios back in January but only have had problems recently.

I decided to stress the PC to narrow down the occurrences and problems. Many people like 3DMark06 for stressing the video card, but I have found an HDR Stress Test that maxes the video card much more efficiently.

http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/

Idle:
CPU: 46c
MB: 33c
GPU: 52c

Load (Orthos only):
CPU: 56-60c
MB:36c
GPU: 53c

Load (Orthos & 3DM06):
CPU: 57-58c
MB: 36c
GPU: 68c

Load (Orthos & HDR ST):
CPU: 58-59c
MB: 36c
GPU: 72c

(I included a range for the CPU load, due to the fact that depending on what test Orthos was running there would be different max temps.)

Before I ran 3DM06 and HDR ST, Orthos was running for half an hour with out any errors. When I built this system back in September I burned it in with over 30hrs of memtest86, over 30hrs of dual Prime95 with HDR ST running together. My pc passed both of these test with no errors or rebooting problems.

My memory voltage is at 2.0, the range for my ram is 1.8-2.0. Asus reports my CPU vcore to be 1.2880, but it always shows up less than the setting in the bios. I watched the voltage rails with speedfan during the tests, and they were very stable, the most change was one tenth of a volt. So unless I missed something it looks like my system has passed this test.

One thought that occurred to me is that it might be my creative sound card. So I removed it and all the drivers, and cleaned it with drivercleaner. I then downloaded the latest drivers from Asus and installed them. Even using the onboard sound the problem still persists.

So now I am out of ideas to fix the problem. I would hate to wipe the drive and reinstall everything. I am open to ideas and suggestions. TIA.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 3:28 pm

At idle the pc draws 210 watts

v. off-topic, but that's a very high idle for those components unless there's some mad overclocking going on.

AND_YOU_ARE · Post by **AND_YOU_ARE** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 3:36 pm

I am over clocking my E6400 from 2.13 to 3.2. I thought i had mentioned that in the first post, but looking over it, I see I left that out. The video card is not over clocked at all, just the cpu.

As for the wattage used, I do have four SATA II drives in my case. With two optical drives.

I also thought it was my over clock that was causing the problems, so I put the speeds and volts back to stock, and the problem still persisted. I over clocked my pc back in October after I built it, and the problems began a few weeks ago, so the over clock did not seem to be the main cause behind the rebooting.

Arvo · Post by **Arvo** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 8:19 am

Have you any Save Dump or System Error messages in your PC System Event Log? (MyComputer >(rightclick) >Manage >EventViewer >System) If yes, I'd be interested in error codes.

I'd say that this is most probably driver issue - let it be hardware driver or some antivirus disk driver. Can you remember - have you (re)installed/upgarded some hardware or drivers lately, have you installed/upgraded anitivrus or other system-level applications?

AND_YOU_ARE · Post by **AND_YOU_ARE** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:43 am

Here is a screen shot of the event viewer window. The top most error, was the last one before the pc rebooted its self in the middle of the night. When I click on that one this is what is displayed in the window that opens up:

DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to start the service PDAgent with arguments "-Service" in order to run the server:
{BD305370-D59A-4293-8AE3-E58926276892}

How do I figure out what I need to look for in order to determine what is causing the reboots?

Looking back on what hardware drivers I have update, I have come up with this. Video hasn't been updated since the first week of November (Nvidia hasn't had new drivers out for the 7 series card). When this problem began I thought it was my audigy 2 sound card, so I updated to the drivers creative had on its website. The previous version of the creative drivers I was using was the ones on the website from September when I built the PC. I haven't updated any of the motherboard drivers. I only began using the on board sound when I though the creative card was causing the problems. I did use drivercleaner to remove the creative drivers from my PC before I used the on board sound.

I wasn't using an anti virus until I had this problem. I keep my browsing clean and constantly check the number of items in start under msconfig and the tasks running. The only protection I had was my hardware and software firewall. I did obtain a copy of AVG7.5 when this problem occurred and updated it and ran it on my pc. It did not find one virus, so I figured it wasnt a virus causing it.

I also downloaded and ran CCleaner. My housemate suggested it. It found a large list of things to remove, so I let it do its thing. But since then I have had two reboots.

Arvo · Post by **Arvo** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:58 pm

If you have no Save Dump or System Error messages, then event viewer doesn't help much. This DCOM error tells that Raxco PD Agent service cannot started - should not be related to restarts.

Well, let's try another way. Look at MyComputer Properties, Advanced, StartUp and Recovery, Settings, System failure - you need to check first option (Write an event to the system log) and uncheck other two (Send an... and Automatically...). So don't you need write debugging information (set to (none)).

If you had already these settings, then something is probably wrong with your motherboard or PSU (or with some connectors) - hardware problem 90%.

If you had different settings, wait for next restart (which should be blue screen actually) and write down STOP codes and erroring module name, which should be appearing on blue screen. In case of blue screen it is drivers or RAM problem usually.

If you won't see blue screen but PC just reboots, then problem is probably hardware related.

yevgenievich · Post by **yevgenievich** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 2:46 pm

i though that some of my experience could help, a while back i had restarts every day for what seemed like no reason, i found the problem and it still doesn't make sense to me. I have Msi board with PT880 Neo chipset with ati 9600, well i found out that because of newest ati drivers and changes in directx made by SP2 was causing restarts. After i uninstalled SP2 and rolled back the ati drivers everything was fine again. why, i don't know but it worked, and i had SP2 installed long enough to put on office 2007(btw that requirement to have SP2 to have office 2007 doesn't seem to be true requirement because office 2007 runs fine on my XP pro SP1)
any don't know if that helps but worth a try

AND_YOU_ARE · Post by **AND_YOU_ARE** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:31 pm

In the System Failure section, all three boxes where checked. I unchecked them.

It was also suggested to me that I bump up my CPU VCore one setting.

I loaded up the BIOS and looked at my voltage settings, they are as follows:

Memory: 2.0v
CPU VCore: 1.3250v
FSM TermV: 1.40v
NB Core: 1.45v
SB Core: 1.60v
ICH Chipset: Auto

I bumped up the CPU VCore from 1.3250 to 1.3375, the next setting higher.

After I did this I played a game for a while and when I wasn't around I left it running and then came back to it. Then I tried DoDS, it ran perfectly for an hour and a half with out any reboots at all. It was great to play a source game staying connected for the whole round.

I am going to run Orthos over night and see if there are any reboots. But so far its been rebooting free.

Arvo · Post by **Arvo** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:16 am

It would be nice if increasing VCore helps. If it is so, then it may indirectly point to some motherboard power problems - leaky capacitors for example. How to check these (visually), is written in many forums (and in much better english than I ever could write

) Or look at Google images.

AND_YOU_ARE · Post by **AND_YOU_ARE** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:27 am

My house mate had a mobo die from bulging capacitors. So it was one of the first things I looked for. They all appear to be fine, with out the slightest bulge.

So far its been more than a day at the next highest CPU VCore setting with out one reboot.

For me it would make sense that the Vcore would need to be increased. I built, over clocked and burned in the pc during the winter. Where I live its very cold, often more for weeks the temp doesnt get above 0 deg F. The room the pc is in is very poorly insulated and doesnt have a heat source besides the pc. With the weather warming up lately the CPU would need more power due to the fact that higher temps mean more resistance, which need more power. Its not something I would have thought of, but so far it has worked.

TonyB. · Post by **TonyB.** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 6:36 pm

Check your temps now that you've increased voltages.

TonyB.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 8:20 pm

have you tested the ram? what is it set to?