Spontaneous reboots in Vista Ultimate

I built a new box and installed Vista Ultimate a couple of years ago,
which has begun to occasionally reboot in a spontaneous and random
manner. I don't recall exactly when this began, but the first time it
happened was at least 6 months ago. And it's not often; maybe averaging
once every 3-4 weeks. It has nothing to do with how long the PC has been
on: sometimes I've been on it for hours; but the last time it occurred,
I had only turned the PC on 20 minutes earlier. It has nothing to do
with what application I'm using at the time: browser, email client,
other. And when it crashes, first the monitor screen goes dark with lots
of multi-colored squiggly lines, and then my PC cleanly reboots. Aside
from the unwanted interruption and any newly input data lost, everything
always seems fine thereafter.

Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
does this sound more like a problem with my video card?

--

Daze

On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:57:14 -0800, "Daze N. Knights"
<> wrote:

>I built a new box and installed Vista Ultimate a couple of years ago,
>which has begun to occasionally reboot in a spontaneous and random
>manner. I don't recall exactly when this began, but the first time it
>happened was at least 6 months ago. And it's not often; maybe averaging
>once every 3-4 weeks. It has nothing to do with how long the PC has been
>on: sometimes I've been on it for hours; but the last time it occurred,
>I had only turned the PC on 20 minutes earlier. It has nothing to do
>with what application I'm using at the time: browser, email client,
>other. And when it crashes, first the monitor screen goes dark with lots
>of multi-colored squiggly lines, and then my PC cleanly reboots. Aside
>from the unwanted interruption and any newly input data lost, everything
>always seems fine thereafter.
>
>Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
>does this sound more like a problem with my video card?

mobo or video problem. FWIW, bad video cards don't usually cause a
reboot, you just lose video.

Hi,

Spontaneous shutdowns or restarts are usually hardware related. If it were
the OS, you'd get a blue screen (stop error) and a journal entry in the
event viewer. Most likely you have a component that is faulty, possibly
memory, power supply, fans, motherboard or processor. You can run the memory
diagnostic for starters, and open the case and blow out accumulated
dust/debris, especially on the processor fan and heat sink. While you're in
there, take a strong pen flashlight and check the capacitors on the
motherboard for any signs of bulging or leaks. If you find one, you likely
will need to replace the motherboard. The power supply can be tested by a
shop or swapped out for a known-good one.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Daze N. Knights" <> wrote in message
news:uxS6J%...
>I built a new box and installed Vista Ultimate a couple of years ago, which
>has begun to occasionally reboot in a spontaneous and random manner. I
>don't recall exactly when this began, but the first time it happened was at
>least 6 months ago. And it's not often; maybe averaging once every 3-4
>weeks. It has nothing to do with how long the PC has been on: sometimes
>I've been on it for hours; but the last time it occurred, I had only turned
>the PC on 20 minutes earlier. It has nothing to do with what application
>I'm using at the time: browser, email client, other. And when it crashes,
>first the monitor screen goes dark with lots of multi-colored squiggly
>lines, and then my PC cleanly reboots. Aside from the unwanted interruption
>and any newly input data lost, everything always seems fine thereafter.
>
> Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
> does this sound more like a problem with my video card?
>
> --
>
> Daze

In article <uxS6J#>,
Daze N. Knights <> wrote:
>
>Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
>does this sound more like a problem with my video card?
>

That's almost certainly a hardware problem. The first thing I'd
look at is power: a good quality power supply would be a good investment
and if it doens't help you needed a spare one anyway :-) A UPS that includes
line conditioning is less than $100 these days, also.

If that doesn't help you could have a bad add-on card or a faulty
motherboard. If there's no indication of the problem in the system logs
then you're stuck with trial and error replacement.

In article <>,
Rick Rogers <> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>event viewer. Most likely you have a component that is faulty, possibly
>memory, power supply, fans, motherboard or processor. You can run the memory

It's not fans because a hot system won't successfully restart
immediately and the reboot pattern generally isn't purely random. It's
not memory because bad memory causes truly random errors, program crashes,
software errors, and the like. Memory that's bad enough to cause continuous
reboots generally won't pass selftest.


BTW bulging caps aren't good but don't indicate an immediate need
for replacement. I've seen older systems with leaking caps run fine until
finally junked, still working.

Thanks to Rick Roders, the wharf rat, and +Bob+ for your tips. You
obviously all agree that it sounds like a hardware problem, which rings
true to me and leaves out Vista as a cause. I'll probably not do too
much until I need to (this remains a fairly rare occurrence), but I have
a new PU on hand, at least, in case I need to try swapping that out at
some point. And it hasn't been long since I've the box open and blown
out the dust.

--

Daze

+Bob+ wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:57:14 -0800, "Daze N. Knights"
> <> wrote:
>
>> I built a new box and installed Vista Ultimate a couple of years ago,
>> which has begun to occasionally reboot in a spontaneous and random
>> manner. I don't recall exactly when this began, but the first time it
>> happened was at least 6 months ago. And it's not often; maybe averaging
>> once every 3-4 weeks. It has nothing to do with how long the PC has been
>> on: sometimes I've been on it for hours; but the last time it occurred,
>> I had only turned the PC on 20 minutes earlier. It has nothing to do
>> with what application I'm using at the time: browser, email client,
>> other. And when it crashes, first the monitor screen goes dark with lots
>> of multi-colored squiggly lines, and then my PC cleanly reboots. Aside
>>from the unwanted interruption and any newly input data lost, everything
>> always seems fine thereafter.
>>
>> Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
>> does this sound more like a problem with my video card?
>
> mobo or video problem. FWIW, bad video cards don't usually cause a
> reboot, you just lose video.

If "bad video cards don't *usually* cause a reboot," do you know if a
bad video card might, at least, *sometimes* cause a reboot of Windows,
or to you think that this behavior actually rules out a faulty video
card and most likely points (after a faulty PSU) to a problem with the
motherboard?


--

Daze

On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:25:41 -0800, "Daze N. Knights"
<> wrote:

>> mobo or video problem. FWIW, bad video cards don't usually cause a
>> reboot, you just lose video.
>
>If "bad video cards don't *usually* cause a reboot," do you know if a
>bad video card might, at least, *sometimes* cause a reboot of Windows,
>or to you think that this behavior actually rules out a faulty video
>card and most likely points (after a faulty PSU) to a problem with the
>motherboard?

You can't rule out anything with electronics. However, while I've seen
bad video cards do a lot of things, I've never seen one cause reboots.
I've seen them prevent booting and cause some really odd scenarios,
but I've always chased reboot problems somewhere else.

You could try changing the "reboot on error" setting on start-up. This will
not fix the problem. Rather, it might allow you to see the blue screen and
read the error message.

With the system running one one of the occasions when it starts up, go to
Control Panel System Advanced system settings. Continue. Startup
and Recovery System Startup. Uncheck Automatically restart. OK out.

The next time it reboots on an error, you will be able to see the message.
Hopefully, it will be useful.


Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007


"Daze N. Knights" <> wrote in message
news:uxS6J%...
>I built a new box and installed Vista Ultimate a couple of years ago, which
>has begun to occasionally reboot in a spontaneous and random manner. I
>don't recall exactly when this began, but the first time it happened was at
>least 6 months ago. And it's not often; maybe averaging once every 3-4
>weeks. It has nothing to do with how long the PC has been on: sometimes
>I've been on it for hours; but the last time it occurred, I had only turned
>the PC on 20 minutes earlier. It has nothing to do with what application
>I'm using at the time: browser, email client, other. And when it crashes,
>first the monitor screen goes dark with lots of multi-colored squiggly
>lines, and then my PC cleanly reboots. Aside from the unwanted interruption
>and any newly input data lost, everything always seems fine thereafter.
>
> Does anyone else have similar problems with Vista crashing on them? Or
> does this sound more like a problem with my video card?
>
> --
>
> Daze

+Bob+ wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:25:41 -0800, "Daze N. Knights"
> <> wrote:
>
>>> mobo or video problem. FWIW, bad video cards don't usually cause a
>>> reboot, you just lose video.
>> If "bad video cards don't *usually* cause a reboot," do you know if a
>> bad video card might, at least, *sometimes* cause a reboot of Windows,
>> or to you think that this behavior actually rules out a faulty video
>> card and most likely points (after a faulty PSU) to a problem with the
>> motherboard?
>
> You can't rule out anything with electronics. However, while I've seen
> bad video cards do a lot of things, I've never seen one cause reboots.
> I've seen them prevent booting and cause some really odd scenarios,
> but I've always chased reboot problems somewhere else.
>

Thanks for your reply, Bob.

--

Daze