I don’t know WHAT is going on here. This stupid computer keeps rebooting when I go to sites that have a bit of content, such as pictures, etc. I have no problem with it when coming to The Dope, or any other sites that are not full of sidebars, pictures, etc. We are sharing a cable modem, if that means anything.
My daugher got a new computer and added more RAM to it, totalling around 896 MB, and has hooked it up to a hub (NOT a router), which mine is hooked up to, also. My computer has 448MB RAM and I thought that was enough to do simple stuff that I do on here. I don’t do ANYTHING fancy or complicated. Just surfing and whatnot. I’ve ran COUNTLESS virus/trojan/worm/etc. scans using the Trend PC-cillin that I ALWAYS have running, and a dealie called ‘Stinger’ that my daughter suggested. Neither found anything.
This is driving me beyond batshit crazy! Any ideas of what the problem is?
Oooh, my daughter claims that I MAY have something using a fan that might not be running, and something may be getting too hot, but she hasn’t taken my computer apart yet to check it out. She’s just a computer geek without any formal training, I might add.
Random reboots can be a sign of overheating. I would suggest your computer geek daughter (I like her already) take a look at the fans and check the temps in the BIOS right after you have one of these reboots.
Heat is definitely a possibility. In my experience I’ve found some of the most common reasons for spontaneous reboots are:
Flaky power supplies. Cheap PSUs often don’t supply a steady, even current to all of the components and may experience fluctuations and/or spikes. This can often lead to stuttering and/or spontaneous reboots or loss of power altogether. Diagnosing this at all very simple unless you can monitor the leads coming from the PSU with a multimeter to see if the current remains steady over a long period of time. Solution: Buy a new (and preferably half-decent) power supply. Enermax make very solid PSUs, and though they’re not nearly as cheap as your average asian import $19.99 special, they’re also not nearly as cheaply made.
Heat. If a critical fan (such as your CPU or power supply fan) is dead or dying due (usually) to excessive dust buildup gumming up the works, it can often cause either drops in power (if PSU) or overheating (if CPU) causing the CPU’s failsafe shutdown to kick in. If your case does not have adequate venting (either due to dead fans, or a complete lack of them, in the chassis) this can also cause intollerable heat buildup. Finding out if this is a problem is pretty simple; open your case and look at the fans while the system is running. If they all seem to run fine, then next shut the system off and try and spin the fans with your fingers. If any do not spin relatively freely, they might need replacing. (They will all have some resistance as the armature rotates inside the magnet ring) Solution: Get a new fan. If it’s a case or power supply fan, this will require a standard 80mm unit. (If you have a dual-fan PSU, the bottom fan is usually 120mm) Chassis fans are simple procedures, mounted with four short, wide-thread screws inserted from the outside. The PSU is a little more tricky as you need to open the entire PSU up, but once open it mounts the same way. CPU and VGA fans generally mount on the heat sink by four long, usually thin-thread screws threaded down through the fan’s four corner mounts and into the heat sink.
Corrupt data on the hard drive. This could be any of a variety of things. If it only happens when you’re browsing the web (as opposed to anywhere else, like in a word processor or game or something) then I would likely suspect either a corrupted browser plugin, some kind of browser hijacker, a bit of spyware, or a virus/trojan. If it happens elsewhere then it may be something slightly more esoteric and difficult to pin down. Solving this can be a bit exacerbating; you’ll need to do a full system scan for corrupt data with scandisk or, preferably, a higher end program like Norton Disk Doctor and Win Doctor; you’ll also need to scan your system for viruses, trojans, hijackers and worms with a virus scanner, and spyware with a spyware scanner. If all else fails (and assuming you’re running Windows XP) you can try doing an XP repair install. This involves booting from the XP CD and going through the motions of installing the OS, but at the stage where you select the partition to install the OS to, you select a "R"epair install instead of a new install. This will effectively go through and re-install all critical Windows files without losing your existing program installations and data.
FWIW, I tried running IE and it’s NOT doing this. Still, I’m going to go back to Firefox and have her check out the BIOS when it reboots the next time…of course, that won’t take too long!
Again, thank you for taking the time to help! It is very appreciated.
Because of the bad reputation that “Blue Screens of Death” obtained, windows XP now has a “helpful” feature that it now restarts rather than displaying a BSOD. To turn it off, go Control Panel->System->Advanced->Startup & Recovery->Settings->Uncheck Automatically Reboot. The BSOD might give you a better hint as to whats going wrong.
That it happens when you’re displaying rich content indicates several possibilities, among which:
-Overheating - either the CPU or Graphics processor(especially if it’s one that has its own fan, which may have failed). Crack the case and look for something that should be spinning, but isn’t.
-Faulty or poorly-seated RAM - try taking out the RAM and putting it back in again (turn everything off and unplug from the wall first, obviously). If you have more than one stick of RAM in there, try starting the system up with one of them removed, then power down and repeat the process with another of them removed.
-Flaky drivers; Not so likely (but still a possibility), and hell to diagnose, but if you know the make and model of your graphics adapter and sound cards, head off to the manufacturer’s website for the latest version of the appropriate driver.
One more possibility is a Motherboard malfunction, such as a burnt-out transistor or capacitor.
These are well-nigh imossible to see (the exception being blown capacitors which may display a star-like golden colored pattern on the (silver colored) top); they are also considered less likely than RAM failure, so you should check that first – but motherboards do go south every no and then.
I’ve seen motherboards get flaky, but the effects are usually more pronounced, usually because whatever goes wrong is often a larger component. Not that this precludes the possibility of a smaller component dying of course, but the tendancy is toward the bigger, hotter bits (CPU, southbridge, RAM, etc.) to fry themselves.
Caps can also leak, which is a lot easier to spot than one that just fries. I don’t see this very often though – usually only on very old hardware. More often I see cracks or breaks on the capacitor legs from someone bending them the wrong way after trying to install some piece of hardware. (These seem to be tied to the same people who bolt their motherboards directly to the chassis creating one big short. :))
How’s the dust situation in your computer room? Perfectly good fans won’t cool a computer very efficiently once the intake vents get a good layer of cat-fur going.
Another vote for overheating being the culprit. I’m a Firefox user as well, and I’ve noticed that when my son goes to the Nick Jr. site, Firefox starts cranking up (instead of using 10-2m of memory, it will start using 120-150m of memory!). Every time I’ve had a spontaneous shutdown, it’s been after one of his sessions. For some reason, IE isn’t affected the same way.
Since I had to open the case to install my new tv card, I cleaned a bunch of gunk out of it, and dusted out the fans. No wonder it was overheating! Haven’t tried Nick Jr. since, but hopefully, that did the trick.
A minor hijack about bad capacitors. At work we’re having a time with motherboards with bad capacitors. You are correct: it’s quite easy to spot the bad ones. The tops are puffed up and some are leaking yellowish/brownish stuff, also visible on top of the capacitor.
The symptom on our machines is that, after they’ve been powered on, they stop just after login. The screen goes black, no errors or blue screens. Sometimes they’ll turn on and work for a few hours before finally giving up the ghost.
Dell got a bad batch so it looks like we’ll be opening up all those machines. I don’t want to paint this as a Dell-only problem. Further research on the 'Net will show that many other electronics manufacturers are affected, too. (Wikipedia Article).
But I’d agree with everyone that the OP’s problem is probably heat or power supply-related.
Firefox has a known bug that causes it to leak memory like a two bit whore on certain sites. It sounds like you have flaky RAM rather than it being an overheating issue. Whenever you reach a certain amount of RAM used, it hits the bad bit which causes it to go flaky.