PC problem

[Wal-Mart Security]

We'll after I recent reformat I've been having a problem. It could happen in game or it could happen when I'm just in windows. Both screens will go black and my machine will just restart. Anyone have any idea what it could be? It didn't do this before the reformat so this makes me think that it isn't hardware. Although if it was something hardware I'm kind of thinking its my video card. (ATI HD 4850)

 

[PhIxX]

I would suspect your cpu overheating - or simply the fan is failing to meet the minimum BIOS speed.

 

[Wal-Mart Security]

Well then why would this be happening after a reformat?

 

[chrisbliss18]

I can't think of anything software-based that would cause this.

The likely suspects are:

• Malfunctioning or overdrawn power supply
• Faulty or overheating video card
• Overheating CPU
• Faulty or overheating RAM

Have you checked your system temps while it's running to see if anything is getting too hot?

A quick way to see if it is heat related is to leave the system off for an hour or so, start up the machine, load a game, and see how long it takes to restart. When the system is back up, start playing again and see how long it takes to restart. If it takes less time to reboot the second time than the first, it's most-likely heat related.

+++++ Addendum +++++
Keep in mind that the most recent thing you've changed isn't always the culprit. Case in point, I was having booting issues with my primary system the other day after trying to get Linux bootloaders to work. There weren't any hardware issues, it was purely the bootloaders that were messing up. However, the next day, the system wouldn't boot. After testing everything, it was the power supply that had died, completely unrelated to bootloaders.

 

[tiddy]

If you right-click on My Computer, go to properties, click on Start-Up and Recovery, and then uncheck "Automatically Restart", you will begin to get blue screens instead of a reboot. Use the blue screen error messages to help narrow down reasons. Post the reasons here, or Google them if you want.

 

[Wal-Mart Security]

Ok. I did what chris said. I turned of my computer and let it cool down for a while. So I started up again and played some TF2 for little over an hour and nothing. It didn't crash or anything. The crashes seem to be random.

 

[PhIxX]

Only way I'd think this was software related was if you didn't update all your drivers back after you reformatted. Otherwise I'd install speedfan and just leave it up for a few hours to check temps. 'Course a good hardware cleaning never hurt anyone.

Did you try Tiddy's advice? If you did, and it still blacks out and restarts - it would only further push me towards thinking cpu or cpu fan as the culprit.

Good luck

 

[FiRESAUCE]

Take your cpu fan off... re apply the thermal paste.. get it back on solid..

Use rivatuner or ati catalyst to up your fan speed on your video card.

Use speedfan to monitor your temps.. or everest by lavalys.

 

[Wal-Mart Security]

I don't have any thermal paste on me.
I do use Catalyst Control Center to jack up my fan speed to 65%. Anything over that the noise is just to much.
And after playing TF2 for another hour or so, I got off and was in windows for about 20 minuets and I was about to close firefox when it went black and restarted again. It's just so random.

 

[Blue Stealth]

the only thing (and far fetched thing) that i can think of is that after you reformatted your computer is having to recollect prefetch data. If you dont know prefetch data is used like AI for your computer to try to guess what programs will be executed etc. Perhaps before the format your comp was mebe a degree or two from overheating. So if youre following, with the prefetch the longer you do the same things on your computer the faster it will get up to a point. Perhaps with this data gone your computer is having to work that extra bit, causing an overheat.

Regardless, I would put my money on bad hardware or overheating.

 

[foxtrotniner]

Try going to start menu and right clicking on "My Computer", select Manage. It should popup the system messages menu. on the right click on Event View to pull down the logs. Check the Application Section and System items. Look for the exact times you had a crash and see if there was anything written to the logs about it. Its worth a try.

 

[Wal-Mart Security]

Well I believe the problem is solved. I recently got a USB headset and I installed it after the reformat and was having a some problems with the headset. I got some popping and scratchy noises. So Chrisbliss and I did some brainstorming decided I should disable my onboard audio in BIOS and see if that fixes the headset problem. (We realized that my onboard audio uses a USB bus so we thought that might help). So I disabled it and the popping and static noises went away and soon did I realize..... so did my crashing problem My USB headset was in some way conflicting with my onboard audio and somehow making my machine crash.

 

[chrisbliss18]

Glad to hear that you got it sorted Wal-Mart. That was an odd series of problems, but it's a good thing to keep in my hat for the odd occasion that it happens again.