Computer Restarting Randomnly After New Pc Built

[protaras]

Hi Everyone

I have a pretty irritating problem with a new computer setup and wonder if anyone has an idea of what I can do to combat it.

Recently I purchased the following upgrades

Asus P5AD2-E Premium 925XE (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard

Intel Pentium 4 650 "LGA775 Prescott" 3.4GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology

Antec NeoPower 480W ATX2.0 PSU

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 160GB 6B160MO SATA 8MB Cache

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256MB DDR3

2 x Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB)

(I have 2gb ram installed on all 4 slots)

The problem I have is random restarts, usually once a day, often twice, the system just goes down with no warning and restarts itself, this normally occurs when running a few applications like video rippers/ encoders. Also strangely it seems to happen nearly everytime ive been playing online poker, one more thing ill add is it seems to wipe my interent cache once its restarted.

Now I have tested each memory stick individually with memtest and also the whole lot together, this returned no errors through many cycles, all temperatures are fine, under max load the cpu is about 54-56 degrees, the strange thing is the computer seems to run like a dream until the interruptions.

I have a standard IDE HD as my main drive and a SATA drive as an extra drive, dont know if this would be a problem.

I have also upgraded my bios to the latest thinking this may solve it, it didnt, and finally the only bios setting I have changed is the memory voltage to 1.9, the computer was already restarting before this but someone else on a corsair forum told me to do so before testing the memory.

Any ideas ? Also I noticed a previous post about disabling automatic restarts on system error, how would I do this under my setup ?

Thank for your help

Paul

[rendrag]

what OS are you running? If it's XP pro, go to start -> run -> eventvwr.msc and see if it lists any fatal errors right before reboot. It could be virus/spyware related as well, so try to update your defs and run full system scans with both.

If you don't need the mem voltage higher than stock, (read you're not overclocking), I wouldn't leave it there.

I mix IDE and SATA, so I know that's not your problem.

I did run into the same problem with random restarts... would run fine forever until I started playing a game, or something CPU intensive. issue turned out to be the motherboard... so keep worst case in mind.

good luck

[rc00451]

I've had the same problem with my system about one year ago.rig : a newly built Asus P4P800 Deluxe, Intel CPU P3.0Ghz, HT FB800Mhz, 2XCorsair 512 DDR.

It turned out to be a bad CPU.

I've replaced the CPU and it never auto-rebooted since.

hopes this helps.

[protaras]

Yes I have Windows XP pro, I looked at the system log previously but there is abolutly nothing reported wrong before it restarts.

It does dump memory after reboot though, if it is any help I am now downloading Mirosoft debugging tools and could post the results.

Im sure it isnt spyware or virus as I have reinstalled full system on three different harddrives in last week and im pretty good on keeping my system free of such things.

thanks

[protaras]

Heres the dump

Microsoft ® Windows Debugger Version 6.4.0007.2

Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Loading Dump File [C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini030105-01.dmp]

Mini Kernel Dump File: Only registers and stack trace are available

Symbol search path is: *** Invalid ***

****************************************************************************

* Symbol loading may be unreliable without a symbol search path. *

* Use .symfix to have the debugger choose a symbol path. *

* After setting your symbol path, use .reload to refresh symbol locations. *

****************************************************************************

Executable search path is:

*********************************************************************

* Symbols can not be loaded because symbol path is not initialized. *

* *

* The Symbol Path can be set by: *

* using the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable. *

* using the -y <symbol_path> argument when starting the debugger. *

* using .sympath and .sympath+ *

*********************************************************************

Unable to load image ntoskrnl.exe, Win32 error 2

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for ntoskrnl.exe

*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for ntoskrnl.exe

Windows XP Kernel Version 2600 (Service Pack 2) MP (2 procs) Free x86 compatible

Product: WinNt, suite: TerminalServer SingleUserTS

Kernel base = 0x804d7000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0x805644a0

Debug session time: Tue Mar 1 19:37:50.328 2005 (GMT+0)

System Uptime: 0 days 2:51:37.030

*********************************************************************

* Symbols can not be loaded because symbol path is not initialized. *

* *

* The Symbol Path can be set by: *

* using the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable. *

* using the -y <symbol_path> argument when starting the debugger. *

* using .sympath and .sympath+ *

*********************************************************************

Unable to load image ntoskrnl.exe, Win32 error 2

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for ntoskrnl.exe

*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for ntoskrnl.exe

Loading Kernel Symbols

....................................................................................................

......................

Loading unloaded module list

...........

Loading User Symbols

Unable to load image ctaud2k.sys, Win32 error 2

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for ctaud2k.sys

*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for ctaud2k.sys

*******************************************************************************

* *

* Bugcheck Analysis *

* *

*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 100000D1, {0, 2, 0, 0}

***** Kernel symbols are WRONG. Please fix symbols to do analysis.

*************************************************************************

*** ***

*** ***

*** Your debugger is not using the correct symbols ***

*** ***

*** In order for this command to work properly, your symbol path ***

*** must point to .pdb files that have full type information. ***

*** ***

*** Certain .pdb files (such as the public OS symbols) do not ***

*** contain the required information. Contact the group that ***

*** provided you with these symbols if you need this command to ***

*** work. ***

*** ***

*** Type referenced: nt!_KPRCB ***

*** ***

*************************************************************************

Probably caused by : ctaud2k.sys ( ctaud2k+27092 )

Followup: MachineOwner

---------

So it appears it could be that sound card driver for my audigy, Never had any problems with same audigy card in my old system.

[Wicket20519]

I don't know if this will help you or not, but once I had a similar problem.

To make a long story short, it turned out to be my graphics card, of all things. I'd flashed the motherboard BIOS and updated the chipset, and even the graphics card chipset, and it'd still reboot.

However, once day ATI released another driver update, I downloaded it, and haven't had a problem since.

Hope that helps.

[matrix0978]

Have you tried download ntoskrnl.exe.

And also i had the same problem. It was my **** motherboard. and CPU because in my days it has happened twice.

OR the coiker fan for the CPU might not have enough power to keep the CPU cold so it is forced to reboot.

[rendrag]

well, you're getting an ntoskrnl fault... you haven't modified it have you?

btw... to disable auto restarts, go to the properties of my computer -> advanced -> startup and recovery. In there is a checkbox next to automatically restart. You can uncheck that.

things you could try:

install a linux OS on your system and see if it randomly reboots. that may tell us if it's just a bad image of XP, or if it's hardware based.

If it's hardware based, then it's tough. You'd have to swap parts in and out to see if you can find the problem, though it seems you've already eliminated RAM as the issue, it could be mobo, or hard drive related. You could disconnect the SATA drive for a while and see if that doesn't help, or try installing windows on just the SATA drive, etc...

good luck. keep us posted.

[protaras]

Hi

No I havent modified that file, I dont know what it is, however I searched the file ctaud2k.sys as it returned errors in the debug.

Via google I found many instances of computers restarting during gaming with this file being the culprit, In my first post I suggested that the computer restarts every time in poker (as far as I can remember)

Could it be that this file does have a conflict in my new system ? I installed new creative audigy 2 drivers and it hasnt restarted yet (im not holding my breath) but havent been grinding the system yet.

Anyway thanks for your help, and I think the next step could be a mobo return, boohoo

[Mekrel]

before you do that download memtest 86, that way you will eliminate the ram maybe being a problem aswell.

No point sending mobo back, to get a new one for the ram to be at fault.

Turn off auto shutdown to get a blue screen stop error. This will give you more info into whats causing it.

If the blue screens are giving out random reasons, the that does point to RAM problems.

[rendrag]

in the first post, it is mentioned that he/she already ran memtest and the RAM was fine.

I never saw that file you mentioned come up when mine was rebooting, so I can't really be sure if that's conflicting

[protaras]

Hi

Since I installed the new drivers the computer has not restarted once, amazing to think that the problem may now be gone!

I had no problems with the sound card on my old system, there must be a major bug with it and my new memory or mobo with those old drivers.

Thanks for your help and fingers crossed I dont return.

Paul

[Mekrel]

in the first post, it is mentioned that he/she already ran memtest and the RAM was fine.

I never saw that file you mentioned come up when mine was rebooting, so I can't really be sure if that's conflicting

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

oops sorry

Glad to hear it may be sorted, if it returns have you tried different PCI slots?