Any new info on Win7 spontaneous reboots?

[Nerval]

Hi guys, I'm very close to reinstalling Win XP, so annoying have the spontaneous reboots of Win 7 Pro x64 become.
No BSOD, the thing just shuts off and reboots. PC was fine for the first few months (new PC, new OS) then rebooted on its own several times in a day - but no pattern to it, sometimes when I'm browsing, sometimes when it's on standby (disks and monitor shut down). No crash dump recorded, only mention in event log is Event ID 41, Kernel Power problem, Task Category 63. which means Windows has no idea why it's shut down.
I never use the machine hard anyway, so I can't blame it on gaming (don't do it) or video processing (don't do that either).

Google shows it's very common, but gives nothing definite as an answer, though several people think they've cured it by fiddling with something or other, then it comes back. Must be something in Win 7 rather than peculiar to my PC. MS are as much help as a chocolate teapot, suggesting overheating (it's not, though I've kept the side off just in case) or driver problems (though I;ve checked the drivers, disabled all but one audio driver, which seems to be a commonly attributed cause, and it still happens) and sending you away to fiddle about to solve what must be their problem.

didn't have a single crash in years of XP, so before I revert to it to keep my sanity, I thought I'd ask if anyone here had any news of a proper solution to it that I might have missed.

[barry2811]

Probably not what you want to hear but on the 4 machines I use Windows 7 on it has been bullet proof. If it's a new PC are you sure there are no hardware issues (shorting, etc.)?

Have you made sure that the machine is set to bluescreen on error rather than just reboot?

[Jasp]

First thing you need to do is disable the auto reboot on blue screen, should be under control panel, system, advanced, system error & recovery if memory serves, their is a check box for auto reboot, uncheck. You should now get a blue screen which should help in identifying the problem.

Also the fact its worked fine for several months could indicate a hardware problem, my first guess would be the PSU.

[Nerval]

Hi Barry, thanks for the reply. if the web wasn't full of the same thing I would think it was my machine - though it ran solidly for a few months before starting playing up.

I'm set to restart, but do a kernel memory dump and write to the event log (nothing in dump, nothing useful in event log), so asking for a blue screen instead wouldn't help would it?

I'm a bit reluctant to start buying replacement bits to swap in and out just in case it's an obscure hardware problem and I don't know how to diagnose hardware other than that.

Part of my thinking I suppose is that I've scoured the net and many people have it and nobody has solved it, but it is very common and I never saw it with XP, that if I go back to XP and the problem goes away then I can say after 6 months or so that it's a Win7 problem. Though what I'll do then when they stop supporting Xp I've no idea.

I've not yet tried a Win7 reinstall, so that could help as the updating sequence is bound to be different. May well try that before resorting to a downgrade.

edit: Just seen Jasp's post.
OK then, I'll set to a blue screen and see.
The PSU is Seasonic so I'd assumed it was OK.
Are there any psu diagnostics other than getting a new one?

[Jasp]

Basically if its still restarting after you uncheck the box but without a blue screen you can limit it down to a hardware issue of some sort or another.

[Nerval]

Thanks Jasp, I've done that so will see what happens next time it goes and report back.

Clearly I shouldn't leap to conclusions

[smargh]

Probably a driver thing. Check video drivers and network card drivers. Perhaps run with ugly low-res standard VGA drivers for a while, to see if that help.

Also check for NIC driver updates, or try downgrading NIC drivers for a while.

Perhaps try these - I end up doing these for various reasons on various installs. On my work PC this avoids some reboots, but I can't recall if they were spontaneous or if by BSOD memory dumps were saved.

netsh interface tcp show global
- view current settings in case you need/want to revert to original settings.

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled
netsh int tcp set global chimney=disabled
netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled

[Nerval]

Right, I've set it not to restart, but it hasn't crashed since so I'm still waiting.
Checked the drivers and installed an updated one for my graphics card which came out in January of this year.
Says that my network adapter is up to date,

So I'll see what happens next.
Don't understand what the netsh stuff does, so I'm leaving it for now.

[Nerval]

Update:
System is set not to restart, but has just turned off and restarted itself with no blue screen or error message.

Does this mean that it can only be hardware faulting out somewhere?
I had a look at my temps etc immediately after it rebooted itself and they seem OK



What would be the next sensible thing to do pse?

[Jasp]

I'd be inclined to say its linked to hardware, as windows is normally nice enough to present you with a error message.

Try the free stuff first, HDtune and Memtest to check the HDs and memory.

[Nerval]

Thanks jasp, I've asked around a fair bit and the consensus does seem to be hardware, probably PSU even though they don't come a lot better than Seasonic apparently.

So I'll stop maligning Windows 7

will run through the testers and see if anything comes up, and failing that try a new PSU.