Computer Restarting Problem

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I've recently upgraded my processor, motherboard and graphics card. Since the upgrade, my computer has taken to restarting itself at seemingly random times, much to my annoyance. It can go all day without restarting, then do it 2 or 3 times in quick succession. This leads me to believe my CPU might be over-heating, so I checked and it's running at 50 degrees which sounds well within my processors maximum temp. Does anyone have any advice or tips on what I could do to sort this out?

Spec:

2800+ AMD Sempron
1ghz DDR Ram
GeForce 6 6600 card
ASRock K7VT4A Pro mobo
160gb PCI HD
200gb SATA HD (this is also new)
400w PSU (in case this comes into it)
Sound is on-board, but seems decent
Anything else needed?

Cheers for help dudes .

 

Hmm, that happened to me, too. I agree with BTA, a reinstall might be necessary, or, if you have two hard drives, I may have an alternative.

Make a fresh install on your new hard drive, and set it as primary master, so that it will use this drive to boot. Then, plug your old hard drive as a secondary master, and everything should work fine.

It's been a VERY long time since I've tweaked comps, so if I made mistakes, feel free to correct me.

 

Yes, I actually formatted my HD and reinstalled Windows on it straight after the upgrade. I'll try what you said DoTW.

Cheers for the help lads .

 

Hmm...When did you check your CPU temp, and How? (i.e. was the computer idle for awhile, or was it under a lot of stress, and did you use the mobo monitor?)

50 degrees at full load is hot! If it's been idle for about 5 minutes and doesn't get to around 30 degrees, then it's the heatsink for sure.
You might have made the most common mistake of all time...forgetting to remove the protective plastic sticker from the heatsink before installing it on to the CPU. Or the heatsink might not be properly attached to the CPU.

 

About that restarting, what does happen actually? The computer just restarts without warning, like pressing the reset button? Or do you get a BSOD?

 

Might try pushing hard on the ATX connector. Sometimes you have a bad contact in it, increasing its resistance, and thus lowering the voltage on your power lines. This can cause crashes and such. It's a problem I'm having with my ATX connector. Every 4-6 months my comp just crashes with a very strange screen. And if I go look at the voltages in the bios screen, they are way too low. When I move/push the connector a bit to get rid of the bad contact again, the voltages go back up to their normal value. A too low voltage on the power lines could potentially trigger a reboot.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. I've re-formatted my HD's many times and tried to re-install Windows many times but it even crashes on the Windows re-install screen (even if the computer has been off all night for example). I didn't actually install the CPU and fan, someone else did it for me and he knows what he's doing with these kinds of things. When I say restart, it's basically as if I have hit the restart button, no error messages or anything.

@ Kitrax - After it restarted a few times, the computer had been on all day, so I checked the temp (restarted comp, went into BIOS and checked CPU temp) and it was running at 50 degrees. When the PC is idle, it's considerably less.

It's still doing it now and must be a hardware problem. I'm just going to take it to a computer shop and leave it with them for a day or two, see if they can suss it (although why do I get the feeling that something will be faulty and require immediate replacement...).

Cheers guys.

 

Are you sure you haven't caught any worm? Those crappy windows viruses enjoy rebooting your system. Try a free online virus scan maybe?

 

My experience with computers when rebooting has been these issues.

1 - Faulty Motherboard
2 - Power supply can't supply enough power
3 - Faulty Ram
4 - Faulty Hard Drive
5 - Faulty IDE/SATA cables
6 - Windows

9 out of 10 times it would be windows. One of my first builds required me to send in my copy of windows to Microsoft so they could send me a replacement since mine had some real issues. The second build had a similar problem. So instead of waiting 3 weeks, I took my windows 95 disc and used that instead. This time around I had a faulty motherboard.

My cousin during his second or third build notice a weak power supply and couldn't run his computer properly. So he had to go out and buy a new power supply. His brother one his first build had a motherboard go bad the day after the warranty expired. My wife had her first computer hard drive go on her. My brother it was some cables.

So it could be anything. If it is any of your new parts hopefully you kept your boxes and reciepts just in case you have to send anything back.

 

I actually think I've just sorted it (fingers crossed). I swapped the ram with the ram in the family's computer and it maade theirs reboot and mien work fine. Even my poor brain can deduce that that may be where the problem lies then. I'll buy some new ram tomorrow. That's a bit annoying as the ram is also brand new. I'll have to send it back.

Thanks for the help and advice guys .

 

Barmy, this happens to me all the time. To combat it, you have to update the drivers on your computer. I just updated my video card driver, and so far, nothing has happened. If what you did doesn't work, try updating all your drivers, or making sure all hardware is installed properly.