Computer randomly restarts

[christiani]

I've just built a new pc, and all is fine, apart from the fact that 2 or 3 times a day at the most (when pc has been on all day), it restarts all of a sudden. The computer consists of the following components:

Intel e6400 processor
Nvidia 7900gs 512mb graphics card
1gb (2 x 512mb) ocz pc6400 DDR2 RAM
External M-Audio Firewire solo sound card
Sony AW-G170AB2 DVD writer
Akasa 400w ultra quiet psu
320 Gb Western Digital WD3200KS SATAII hard drive
Abit AB9 pro motherboard

There don't seem to be any clues as to why this is heppening (blue screen of death etc)
Any ideas?

[killie99]

How is the temperature of the CPU looking? Heatsink definately fitted correctly? Are you doing anything in particular when it reboots or is it compeltely random? Have a look at the voltage levels in the bios to see if any of them are fluctuating excessively.

[this_is_gav]

There don't seem to be any clues as to why this is heppening (blue screen of death etc)

The BSOD is turned off by default in XP, replaced by an automatic restart.

System > Advanced > Startup and Recovery settings > untick Automatically Restart.

Unlikely to give you much useful info, but there it is anyway.

You tried the basics? Memtest, Orthos? Do you have it overclocked, and if so, how's the thing when it's a stock speed?

[christiani]

Thanks for the info about the automatic restart option. Unticked that immediately
As far as the system goes, it's straight out of the box, and hasn't been overclocked at all. Temperatures are fine. When I open the guru program (supplied with motherboard), none of the temperatures are over 40 degrees. Voltages seem to be ok as well. A 400w PSU is powerful enough to power all these components right?
By the way, what memtest do you use 'this_is_gav'?
Also, what's orthos?

[chrestomanci]

A 400w PSU is powerful enough to power all these components right?

Only if it is a quality one (FSP, Tagan, etc). If you brought the cheapest one avalable then perhaps not. I would say that if you paid less than about 10p/Watt of rated capacity, you may have a cheap and nasty one.

Cheap power supplies often have very exagerated ratings, so 400W could be peak usage, and sustained could be more like 250w, leading to system instablity.

BTW, your symptoms don't sound like overheating, if they where it would shutdown & refuse to restart for a while. (I had a faulty CPU fan a couple of years ago and it did that).

By the way, what memtest do you use 'this_is_gav'?

http://www.memtest.org/

[christiani]

It's a Akasa 400w ultra quiet psu, which cost about £43.

[this_is_gav]

Also, what's orthos?

It's a stress test for CPUs normally used in overclocking. If it's making errors with yours it generally shows the CPU sub-system isn't up to the task - not enough voltage, too high a temperature, clocked too high or faulty.

Memtest as chrestomanci said (get the ISO version and burn the image to a CD).

[christiani]

My computer tried to restart itself again a minute ago, but as I followed 'this_is_gav's advice and turned automatic restart off, I got a blue screen of death. It read as follows:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

driver_irql_not_less_or_equal

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen , restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software...

If problems continue, disable or remove and newly installed hardware or software...

Technical information
*** stop: 0x000000d1 (0x0000001c, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xf7970d19)

*** firelm01.sys - address f7970d19 base at f7970000, datestamp 425c4fe3

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete

Do any of you have any idea what might be wrong?

[christiani]

My computer crashed again this morning and showed a 'blue screen of death'. This time the techinical information was:

*** STOP: 0x000000D1 (0X00000008, 0X00000002, 0X00000001, 0XF7622D0E)

*** ohci1394.sys - Address F7622DOE base at F7620000, Datestamp 41107dbd

Any ideas?

[chrestomanci]

ohci1394.sys is the device driver for firewire. I have no idea what firelm01.sys does, but the fact that two different drivers have been names in a crash suggests that they are not at fault, but are innocent bystanders.

Perhaps you have faulty hardware. Did you try running memtest?

[christiani]

That's what I was thinking. I got an adaptor that screws onto on of the card slots on the case which has a firewire socket. This device is simply a cable that connects to the motherboard, so not really a firewire interface as such. Do you think that this is the source of the problem?
p.s. I'll try and get some pics taken of the device to clear up my awful description

[Max Tractor]

What slots have you got the memory in?


edit-important


And remember if you are going to swap the memory/slots you MUST discharge all power from the system first

[chrestomanci]

That's what I was thinking. I got an adaptor that screws onto on of the card slots on the case which has a firewire socket. This device is simply a cable that connects to the motherboard, so not really a firewire interface as such. Do you think that this is the source of the problem?
p.s. I'll try and get some pics taken of the device to clear up my awful description

That just sounds like a port adaptor. All it does is provide a firewire port on the back of the case from headers on the motherboard. It is unlikely to be the source of problems as it does not contain any electronics.

As I say, Have you run memtest yet? If there are faults in the memory, or CPU it will find them quickly.

[dave87]

Yup, memtest or Prime95 will indicate the source of any problems

[christiani]

I downloaded the microsoft memtest and ran it from a cd. It was fine on everything, the first time it went through the process apart from the stride6 test, which it failed on.
However, I let it go though every test for a second time, and it passed the stride6 test.
Does this give anyone any more of an idea what might be wrong?
P.s. It's OCZ RAM. Has anyone else had problems with this brand of memory before?

[pp05]

Mine has been restarting a fair bit recently too. Error codes points to memory but cannot be sure.

It crashed a few times when I was watching a dvd.

I used uguru tool just now from abit, which got some alarm ringing. CPU temp is 66 degs.. Not sure if it should be that high?