PC Restarts

Hi> PC playing up again. Getting random restarts when i run some games, or use the full screen mode in Windows Media Player. Could the graphics card be playing up or is more likely to be a softwre issue?

Specs: AMD AthlonXP3000+, 768MB RAM, Sapphire Radeon 9550, Windows XP Pro, 80GB Hdd


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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

Most likely, as ever a cheap PSU or an overheating problem. I don't think the WMP visualisations use the graphics card at all really, other than fill-rate, so can't see the graphics card being the problem.

In the meantime, so you can at least listen to music, turn off visualisations (they're pointless anyway), or download Winamp, for which there is no excuse, crashing PC or not

use WMP 6.4 instead

what does the error say before it restarts (if there is one, if not turn off automatic restart)

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I'll have a look and turn off auto restarts... last time I used WinAMP, it restarted my machine when u ran it, so i gave up with it. Never used to like WMAs either iirc

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

I've seen this problem loads of times before, there are two reasons for this, first of all make sure your HD is virus free, if it is then it's almost certainly a dodgy memory stick in your PC.

Mike, seriously... it could be anything. It's very doubtful it's HD related, virus or otherwise though.

for the record-when auto restart is disabled, I get a BSOD, with all the usual 'contact your system admin' rubbish. Time for the AMD Turion laptop I think

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

"Mike, seriously... it could be anything. It's very doubtful it's HD related, virus or otherwise though."
Yeah, i agree but with all my previous experiences of random reboots have always been memory related, but i agree the power supply, if it's cheap and nasty could be a possible culprit.

surely if it was PSU, it would just restart, and wouldn't give a windows error message? RAM is possible-i had problems with Ram and this motherboard before.

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

harjinator Wrote:
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> surely if it was PSU, it would just restart, and
> wouldn't give a windows error message? RAM is
> possible-i had problems with Ram and this
> motherboard before.

You get RAM issues with every board. There's no board that works with every stick of RAM. To test whether it is the RAM, run Memtest86 ([www.memtest86.com]) - it needs to be run from a boot disk, so you'll need to create one. Alternatively, it's part of the Hiren's BootCD, if you'd prefer to make a bootable CD with it ([homepage.ntlworld.com]). Let it run for at least half an hour, and if there's no errors, you can probably discount the RAM, or any compatibility problems between it and the motherboard.

The theory behind the PSU isn't that it's failed when it restarts the PC (or causes the BSOD now), more that the volts are fluctuating enough for the motherboard/RAM/CPU/hard drives to simply deliver a wrong instruction. It's a simple problem that doesn't sound too serious, but the chances are it means the PSU is on the way out. Budget PSUs are like this. They start off working fine, but deteriorate rapidly, before failing completely, usually taking other things components with it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2006 10:26AM by gav.

ah, i'll just buy a laptop. can't be arsed with this PC any more

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Team Japan Owner - GPGNC

I think Gavs right on this one tbh, Most likely PSU problem. But it could be absolutly anything.

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harjinator Wrote:
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> ah, i'll just buy a laptop. can't be arsed with
> this PC any more

I'll wait until a few years time when the laptop battery dies, and you come asking why your laptop won't switch on then

It's technology. Buy budget, budget fails. Buy cutting edge, and it's been eclipsed by the time it's been unpacked. There's a middle ground somewhere.