Re: System Completely Freezes or Spontaneously Reboots

Hi,

I already have BSOD rebooting disabled. I've had BSOD's before, and like you
said, they happily sit there until I awake. So that isn't likely the case
here (I even wish it were.. I would love to have _any_ diagnostic info to
help me figure out the problem!) And I do not, to the best of my knowledge,
have anything that would force a reboot either, and I am on a UPS and set up
so if the power fails longer than 5 mins, everything shuts down in an
orderly manner, and _stays_ shut off until I restart everything. Plus, such
events _do_ get logged to the system log. These freezes and reboots do not.

Regarding it being a possible hardware issue.. as I've said, I've swapped
out just about everything with my other PC. Mainboard, RAM, video card, etc.
The only thing I have not swapped are the disk drives and power supply. When
swapped, it's still this PC that reboots or freezes, the other one continues
to operate fine. I can even install and play the same games on the other one
without it freezing. The only real difference is the other PC is Windows
2000, this one is Windows XP--which is why I came to the XP help and support
community ;-)

In truth, the way it acts is what makes me think it's software. If it were
hardware, it would more likely be either totally random or more immediate
when it freezes. But as it always happens about 10-20 mins into the game
running.. My thought was that something is not releasing resources which
will eventually run out.. Not right away, but a little bit into the game as
it slowly gobbles everything up. If it were just in one game, I'd figure the
game itself had the problem. But since it's in several, my natural
assumption would be the middle man--the drivers and Direct-X--between the
game and the video subsystem. Similarly, the fact that it only seems to
happen with games sporting 3-D graphics and using Direct-X, but not other
3-D applications or OpenGL, makes me think more and more it's something with
Direct-X, not hardware. I even considered maybe the GPU is flakey or
overheating under the stress of the 3-D, but between swapping hardware and
the fact it doesn't affect OpenGL or other 3-D engines, just Direct-X,
further makes me think it's software. (I still have not ruled out hardware,
though. I just think it's unlikely.)

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Regards,
--
C. Mitchell

"Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nr0i2499etbo6b4t53hsvsvip1qtnjq9jo@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 12 May 2008 22:48:20 -0400, "C. M." <shadowlord1972@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Hi,

I've been trying to solve this for almost two weeks now, but I'm
completely at a loss of what else to try. I'll give the symptoms, what
I've already tried, and what my lines of thought and troubleshooting have
been thus far..

First, very rarely, my system will spontaneously reboot.


If your computer is restarting spontaneously, you are presumably
blue-screening, and you are set to the default of rebooting whenever
that happens. It's a poor default setting and you should change it.
Right-click My Computer, and choose Properties. On the Advanced tab,
click Settings under Startup and Recovery. Under System failure,
uncheck the box "Automatically restart.

Now when the problem occurs again, instead of restarting, you will get
the blue screen with diagnostic information. Post back with those
details for more help.

Also note that this is more likely to be a hardware problem than a
software one.


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup


.

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