random restart and clock not staying on time

[hakeem5454]

my computer keeps restarting randomly, so i was wondering if this is a power supply problem? And tthe time on my computer(at the bottom right) doesnt stay on time, so my dad said its probably a battery problem, is he right?

[ripken204]

well if the clock is the wrong time then its b/c of the system battery that is on ur mobo. does the comp just randomly restart? list all of ur comp specs.

[Wolf_Demon]

hmm, awhile ago my computer clock did that, but then i updated my BIOS and now it stays on time

[hakeem5454]

@ripken i have a SONY VAIO PCV-RS100(if u want the specs)

@wolf_demon, when i go to the sony support site they only have the original bios driver for my comp not an update driver.

[Zxian]

Well... here's a couple things you can check to help pinpoint your problem.

- Check the voltage of your CMOS battery (a watch battery found on the motherboard). If you have access to a voltmeter, compare the reading to what the battery model should be (you can find the nominal voltage online with a bit of searching).

- Download and run Knoppix. If you can run that for a while without the computer rebooting, then chances are you've got a Windows problem (either with the system or with drivers).

Usually if it's a power supply problem, you won't get reboots, but you will get strange behaviour.... although anything could happen really...

[Wolf_Demon]

well what motherboard do you have? is it a sony one? if it isn't try finding the home page of it

[hakeem5454]

uh, i dont know what kind of motherboard i have. the bios is award bios though? hope that helps.

[Zxian]

Did you try what I said about Knoppix?

[hakeem5454]

when i search for knoppix on google it brings up stuff about linux knoppix. When i click on download it takes me to an ftp site with a bunch of different files, what one do i download?

[Zxian]

Yes, Knoppix is a special distro of Linux that is meant to be run from a CD.

You'll want to download the Knoppix Live CD. It should be an ISO file probably 600-700MB in size (I can't remember).

When you're done downloading it, burn the image onto a CD using something like Nero or DeepBurner (burn image, not the data file). Put the CD into your computer and reboot. You'll need to set the boot order in BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD drive first.

[ssmokee]

when i search for knoppix on google it brings up stuff about linux knoppix. When i click on download it takes me to an ftp site with a bunch of different files, what one do i download?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

KNOPPIX_V3.9-2005-05-27-EN.iso

This is the file you want I think.

[hakeem5454]

whoa!, ok this time it randomly restarted i saw a blue dos window wit grey writing on it(kinda like one of those messeages u get that say fatal error) for about a point second, then when the computer restarted it gave me 2 messages saying: This system has recovered from a serious error. and LSIA or something management(not sure what the second one exactly said because it went away afer 2 seconds)

[Zxian]

You need to set your computer to not automatically restart in the event of a system failure. To do this:

-Right-click My Computer

-Advanced tab

-Click on Settings under Startup and Recovery section

-Uncheck the box beside Automatically restart

You may need to manually reboot the computer for this setting to take effect.

Next time that the computer restarts, it may show the blue screen again. Write down the STOP code (something like 0x0000000A and the numbers after it) and check that to the codes listed here.

[hakeem5454]

ok i did that. Why do i get so many system failures now? I didnt get them this often until now..

[Zxian]

It sounds like some sort of dying hardware. When hardware goes, it doesn't always just turn belly up right away. Over time, it will gradually fail and give you errors along the way.