PC Keeps restarting

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acetone

181 posts

Master Geek

#303548 17-Feb-2023 21:22

Hoping that someone has an insight that I have missed.
My PC was running fine and then I turned it off and went away for a week. When I came back it didn't want to boot and now it just randomly restarts.
It seems to restart after about an hour. It could be 40 minutes or 90 minutes or anywhere in between.
Spec

What I have done so far:
- Purchased new PSU

- Swapped power cable
- Unplugged everything
usb headers etc
The only thing that I have running is an SSD.
- Prime95 runs fine
- Memtest runs fine
- Re seated all sticks of ram, run with one stick at a time, run through all of them.
- Taken the CPU heat sink off and re done the thermal paste.

Kind of lost for options now, other than buying a new mobo/cpu/ram.
Anyone want to chip in any ideas?

timmmay

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#3038363 17-Feb-2023 21:42

Try HCI Memtest for 12+ hours. There's a free version, I paid for it to get a bootable version, it's cheap. It found a memory error that the others missed for me, a few years back on a 2600K.

Mobo would be my next guess, followed by CPU, but you'd upgrade rather than replace.

acetone

181 posts

Master Geek

#3038364 17-Feb-2023 21:43

It won't last for 12 hours, the longest I have had it run was 3:50.

timmmay

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#3038365 17-Feb-2023 22:13

Give the free version a shot anyway. Try flashing the bios with latest update too.

MadEngineer

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#3038376 17-Feb-2023 22:55

What's in event viewer?

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

lxsw20

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#3038383 17-Feb-2023 23:23

timmmay: Try flashing the bios with latest update too.

Risky move with a system that randomly reboots.

timmmay

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#3038397 18-Feb-2023 05:57

Yeah, I read something similar recently that was fixed by bios update.

I'd also try a boot Linux USB if it hasn't been done already.

acetone

181 posts

Master Geek

#3038427 18-Feb-2023 09:34

timmmay: Yeah, I read something similar recently that was fixed by bios update.

I'd also try a boot Linux USB if it hasn't been done already.

It already had the latest bios. I did re flash it with that same version, cleared cmos and still same issue.

I can boot into Linux USB or just leave the PC idle in the bios menu, still restarts. So pretty confident it isn't an OS issue.

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SepticSceptic

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#3039876 21-Feb-2023 08:36

One of the weirdest random reboot faults I had was a flakey reset switch.

Just disconnect the connector from the mobo.

surfisup1000

5288 posts

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#3039878 21-Feb-2023 08:43

acetone:

Hoping that someone has an insight that I have missed.
My PC was running fine and then I turned it off and went away for a week. When I came back it didn't want to boot and now it just randomly restarts.
It seems to restart after about an hour. It could be 40 minutes or 90 minutes or anywhere in between.

Similar happened to me recently. My daughter's PC would randomly restart, although the time interval varied from 1 minute to a couple of hours in our case.

Do you hear anything like a 'click' when it restarts? Ours sounded like a relay click, then the pc would reboot. Figured it was either the mobo or power supply, was leaning towards the power supply.

I had a spare mobo so swapped it and problem was fixed.

These probs can be caused by so many things, could be worthwhile clearing bios cmos, reinstalling the OS, just to see if it is software.

djtOtago

1149 posts

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#3039892 21-Feb-2023 09:09

If your Bios can monitor cooling fan speeds, try turning that off temporarily to see if it helps. And same for temperature monitoring if possible. I have come across faulty temp sensors and weird fan RPM issues in the past.

Just as an aside note. I had 4 computers working as a rendering farm running 24-7 for over 4 years without a problem. They were shut down for 4 weeks for one of the Covid lockdowns. 2 failed to re start at the end of lockdown. One was a dead power supply, the other was a dead motherboard.

acetone

181 posts

Master Geek

#3046242 6-Mar-2023 11:14

djtOtago:

If your Bios can monitor cooling fan speeds, try turning that off temporarily to see if it helps. And same for temperature monitoring if possible. I have come across faulty temp sensors and weird fan RPM issues in the past.

Just as an aside note. I had 4 computers working as a rendering farm running 24-7 for over 4 years without a problem. They were shut down for 4 weeks for one of the Covid lockdowns. 2 failed to re start at the end of lockdown. One was a dead power supply, the other was a dead motherboard.

The motherboard had a lot of temperature sensors and I was monitoring these, I could see anything obvious.

acetone

181 posts

Master Geek

#3046243 6-Mar-2023 11:14

surfisup1000:

acetone:

Hoping that someone has an insight that I have missed.
My PC was running fine and then I turned it off and went away for a week. When I came back it didn't want to boot and now it just randomly restarts.
It seems to restart after about an hour. It could be 40 minutes or 90 minutes or anywhere in between.

Similar happened to me recently. My daughter's PC would randomly restart, although the time interval varied from 1 minute to a couple of hours in our case.

Do you hear anything like a 'click' when it restarts? Ours sounded like a relay click, then the pc would reboot. Figured it was either the mobo or power supply, was leaning towards the power supply.

I had a spare mobo so swapped it and problem was fixed.

These probs can be caused by so many things, could be worthwhile clearing bios cmos, reinstalling the OS, just to see if it is software.

No clicking noise that I could tell.

acetone

181 posts

Master Geek

#3046244 6-Mar-2023 11:16

Thanks for all the ideas folks.

In the end I couldn't track down the issue so I have replaced the motherboard.
Everything is working fine with a new one :)

johno1234

2793 posts

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#3046269 6-Mar-2023 12:11

Could have been a marginal component or connection that fails when it warms up. Would have been interesting to run a big cooling fan on it in a room with aircon cranked up to the max to see if it changed the time to reboot - or alternatively same thing in a hot room.