Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bobboau on March 13, 2007, 04:54:04 pm
-
so last night I was more or less asleep, when I heard a loud pop from outside, a few seconds later I hear the sounds of my computer starting up, sence I keep my computer on virtualy all the time and have it set to not turn back on if it loses power, I assumed the power had flitered off for a second, and to be safe I turned it off and whent back to sleep. today when I wake up I turn it on and everything seems faily normal, I do some work on some stuff, after a few hours of use out of the blue, it goes pop (it has always made a slight popping noise when it turns off) and restarts (and I hadn't saved my work for a while :mad: ), I think 'ok, thats... not good, maybe it was just a random thing' it gets to the logon screen and I enter my password, it gets into it's normal startup ruteen and then suddenly BAM! restated again. so it looks like my computer is broken, I'm not sure how or where but any time I try to do something computationaly expesive it will randomly reboot, and usualy the next time it starts up it reboots again during the first few seconds of post login running.
this sucks :rolleyes:
-
I had this once- turned out that the caked layers of dust were interefering with the cooling. About 20 minutes with an air compressor and everything was a-ok.
I admit it's bloody unlikely that that's all thats wrong... but it can't hurt to check, considering its free.
-
If your hearing a pop, my bet is that the power supply is going.. replace it b4 it fries your board.
EDIT: Either that, or your power supply is fine, and you've got an intermittent short that is causing your power supply to shut down to protect the computer. Not likely, as I believe it would just shut off, not restart... but I could be wrong. Find a known good power supply (or just buy one), try that, see what happens
EDIT2: You DO have more than one copy of your hard drive around... DON"T YOU!!? :hopping:
-
My guess is that by disturbing the dormant trash sediment layers on your room's floor, you have awakened some hidden power that now manifests as electronic disturbances, causing your computer to malfunction occasionally.
I suggest you summon an exorcist immediately, preferably yesterday. If it doesn't work, the second chance is to check if the awaken demon resides inside your computer in a form of dust covering components...
-
I had something similar happen... but that was because a virus deleted an apparently crucial start-up file... and the computer was helpless. We eventually had to re-format the Hard Drive... fortunately all my stuff was backed up. :D
-
I got it from an overheating Graphics card, but that was obviously the graphics card, the computer would cut out 20 mins into any graphically intensive game, and then needed to sit for 10 minutes before being restarted, else it would just cut out again at boot-up.
-
What does the pop sound like? There is more than one type of pop-like noise that could signal trouble. :p
Run Memtest86+ and see if it throws up anything.
-
Indeed, the difference between a 'Pop' and a 'Click' can often mean the difference between a new Power Supply and the dreaded 'Death of Hard-Drive' :(
-
the pop is nothing I'm pretty sure it isn't even coming from the computer per'se but the sound of the sound card losing power magnified by the 500 watt stereo it's hooked up to, it comes out of the speakers, and has been doing it for as long as I had the computer hooked up to the stereo. and it's definately not a hard drive click, although I do hear one of them once every blue moon, I had a hard drive fail on me before and I know what that's like.
-
Download Memtest86+ .iso (http://www.memtest.org/#downiso), burn that, boot it, let it test through a complete round of tests, if not overnight.
-
Ugh. Didnt see this thread. Ignore my PM then, I guess :sigh:
GL with the computer problem. I dont know what it could be.
-
well it hasn't crashed for a while, maybe it'll be fine...
-
Two primary possibilities:
1. Overheating (most likely).
2. Dying power supply (least likely).
To me, this sounds like a classic case of overheating. Check your fans, check your heatsinks, and check your temperatures. Motherboard Monitor is a good tool for checking it on-the-fly.
Truly random restarts (without error codes in the event log... you did check that, right ? :D) are almost ALWAYS the result of heating or power issues. Power issues should also manifest on startup though (cold-boot), so try powering off the PC overnight one night, and boot it up in the morning. If it POSTs properly, chances are it isn't power.
In fact, I bet one of two fans in your PC is toast... the CPU heatsink/fan, or the video card heatsink/fan.
-
...PSU fan(s)?
PS Bobboau: Did you hear a kind of loud whirring/grinding noise for a few weeks/months before this happened? A noise that cut out after the computer warmed up? Some ball bearing fans do that when they are going. Also, you are using a Surge Protector/Suppressor, right? And the grounding is fine?
-
this is why i shut down my computer when i dont use it. i hear alot of people who say its better on your computer if you leave it on. i think those people smoke too much crack. your computer will go obsolete before it dies due to stress caused by starting up and shutting down.
if you got a mobo with non-volitile ram on it (which is used for some obscure, mythical reason, probibly storing bios settings), try finding the setting to reset it in your bios. the data on it might have been corrupted in the power failure. ive had some scarey powerfailures when my computer was on , usually resulting in odd boot behavior. resetting the nv ram seems to fix it every time. nother thing that works is a shutdown, then remove the machine from power for awhile. this works too.
wouldnt go as far as a backup battery, but a line conditioner might work. its sad but all the apartments i ever lived it i can only remember one that was properly grounded. if they havent been grounded its a good probability that the wiring is old too. mice in the walls like to chew on wires too, we have a problem with squirrels on the lines too. how i long for the day when houses have their own fusion reactors.
-
how i long for the day when houses have their own fusion reactors.
Me too, but considering your custom text, I wouldn't want you to get your hands on it :p
this is why i shut down my computer when i dont use it. i hear alot of people who say its better on your computer if you leave it on. i think those people smoke too much crack. your computer will go obsolete before it dies due to stress caused by starting up and shutting down.
It's called thermal creep... your processor and components go from room temperature to more than two times that in a few minutes. When you shut it off, the same happens in reverse. Which is no problem, except that some of the components expand/contract at a different rate under the same temperatures. This causes them to loosen. Of course, you can always just go through your system and make sure everything's tight if something goes wrong...
Oh, and some people have their computers doing things while they are not using them ::) ;)
-
well thats ok, hence running a server or pirating stuff. but considering how often they simply idle doing nothing i think its a waste of power. i admit that thermal creep over time can cause damage, one of the reasons why components have a predicted lifespan. even so, regular startups and shutdowns, most components would last about 5 years. i dont think i own any electronics over 5 years old. computers go obsolete in a year or two anyway, so why go to extreems to get an extra year of life out of something. creep in itself can usually be fixed by the "wiggle it" technique.
if you want hardware to last, there are better ways to do it than leave it on all the time. one good way is to avoid unneccisary tampering. esd damage can be undetectable for a long time before any noticeable damage sets in. another good way is to keep your computer area clean. i have to constantly clear dust and cat hair from my fans and intakes. smoking can be bad too. makes the dust sticky, as does humidity. im supprised computers dont have air filters. a secondary enclosure helps too, just so long as its ventalated. yes you can clean your case, but then thats tampering and can cause esd exposure, especially using an air compressor or vaccume. moving dust creates static, so use canned air with an anti-static agent. but if you can avoid dust collection in the first place, thats the preferable way. a good way to reduce dust collection, oddly enough, is to turn your computer off when not in use.
-
my computer is an alarm clock
-
even so, regular startups and shutdowns, most components would last about 5 years. i dont think i own any electronics over 5 years old. computers go obsolete in a year or two anyway, so why go to extreems to get an extra year of life out of something.
I beg to differ; most components are past their useful mainstream lifespan within 4 years. I know there are much older computers that have run for many years on end. One example; the file server is an old 400-or-so-mhz Intel with 64mb of RAM and 2mb of VRAM. The server itself has a software RAID5 (7 x Seagate Cheetah (15,000RPM, 147GB, SCSI) with nearly a terabyte of storage. It runs NT 4.0 iirc (don't tell me about hard drive max sizes, I somehow doubt most of em).
Anyways... desktops for office stuff go obsolete in about 6 years. Workstations go obsolete in about 4 years. Gaming rigs and laptops go obsolete in about 2 years. Still, storage servers will probably run for 12+ years. We have had hard drives fail in the RAID array; slower transfer and the same vulnerability of RAID 0.
Anyways, Bobboau; what type of power supply do you use? If its an OEM PSU, its likely dying because the manufacturers test how much energy is needed and round up to the nearest 50-watt interval; not a perfect idea to say the least.
Anyways, can you give us some more info about your computer? Complete specs?
-
Happened to me just a month ago. Check the cables running from the power supply to the motherboard: if they're all black and charred then you've got a problem. An expensive problem. Otherwise just try replacing the power supply.
-
the PSU is the only part of my computer I'm not sure about, I have an ASUS A7N8X delux mobo (PCBv2.0), AMD Athlon XP 3000+, a gig of 400mhz ram (froget who made it), ATI radion 9800 pro 128MB, audigy 2 sound card, an ATI TV input card (has caused more crashes and hard locks than anything else ever), two 110 GB ATA hard drives, one of wich is more or less worthless and error prone and also made into three partitions, one of which was a windows partition before it went bad, the second partition I was going to try and dual boot linux but never got any further than makeing a seperate partition, the thrid was for a long time a data partition, but anything usefull in there has been moved to the SATA drive. the other 110HD is the current windows install, it's sole job is running windows, a lot of minor applications get saved here. the main hard drive is a 250 GB SATA drive, it is were all my important data is I have been abuseing it sence I got it and I have yet to fill it up (huge uncompressed video files and ****).
-
As I said, check the Windows event log, and then start checking temperatures.
-
They generally won't overheat toward the end of their lifespans. I'd recommend you backup most of your data on DVDs, do a low-level format of all hard drives, remove the TV card, and retry installing. You don't even have to register WinXP; you have 30 days to try the setup before you're commited to reregistering... they should give you no problem, if they do just say youre trying to fix your system and describe your problem.
Anyways... if you replace the system, any chance to send me the RAM? I need some more RAM; I had a 512mb stick burn out, so I'm left with 1 DIMM and 512mb. :blah:
-
Umm, check the wattage on your PSU. I would hope you had at least a 400 watt, preferrably a 600 watt. You've got a lot of hard disks. This may be the reason one of them is so error prone; hard disks don't take to being underfed, IIRC. You should be able to find the wattage on the back of the PSU, I hope.
EDIT:
http://www.google.com/search?q=power+supply+calculator
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp
-
it's 420 watts, and that thing was buggy from the day I got it, when it was the only hard drive and I didn't have most of the extra parifrials.
honestly I haven't had a problem sence I made this topic.
-
Reffered to informally (meaning only by me) as Dancing Frog Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_J._Frog).
-
420 watts with a Radeon 9800 is cutting it a bit thin. I had a similar situation. System worked fine for about a year then just started turning off for no reason. Turned out I was right at the limit of the power supply all along. Apparently it started to get a bit weak and wasn't putting out the full wattage anymore. Bought a bigger power supply and haven't had any problem since except the odd fan going out.
Just went back through a couple of years of email and found the support ticket from ATI.
Regarding your RADEON 9800 PRO:
What is the Power Supply rating of your computer ? The 9800 series of products require a MINIMUM of 300W of power in a normal configuration.
When you play 3D computer games, the card draws more power. If your power supply is already maxed out, then the card will fail and therefore your machine will shut down.
So that's over 300 watts just for the video card.
-
ATI's recommendations are intended to cover generic, unbranded units. A good quality 300W will run his system quite comfortably (my guess is that it uses no more than 150-170W on full load, going by what my computer is like). If it's a generic one, on the other hand, it may have problems regardless of its rated wattage.
In any case, memory problems are a much more common cause of this behavior than power supply issues, often giving the kind of speaker pop he described.
-
*wonders when Bobboau will drop off the face of the online Earth for a few weeks, then re-appear complaining about his massive system failure*
-Seriously, though, did you run Memtest86+?
-
it's 420 watts, and that thing was buggy from the day I got it, when it was the only hard drive and I didn't have most of the extra parifrials.
honestly I haven't had a problem sence I made this topic.
in that case id just say ignore it. probibly had some unwanted potentials that discharged themselves with time.
i doubt its a memory problem. its common for speakers to pop when the power fails, happens on stereos, tvs and computers alike. almost every computer ive worked on that has shut itself down for unknown reasons has popped. i accept this as normal.
-
...Right, but they don't usually just shut down.. (at least, not since XP, for me)
Then again, how long had it been running since the last restart/shutdown?
-
Remember WinXP generally will destabilize itself the longer it runs... most WinXP machines become too unstable to use effectively within about a week. Some, however, can run for very long; notably my school's P4 computers have run for over a month. Why? Because, nothing we do sticks; the machine is effectively reset every time someone logs on and off.