Alrighty, this is the 3rd time I've tried to write this, as my IE and computer either error or restarts. I need help on trying to figure out why my computer does a random restart. It will stay up for more than 5 minutes and then randomly after that it will restart. I am running NOD32 antivirus. Just installed the following new hardware

1. DVD Burner (Digital Research, Magic Rite Brand) --- 4X
2. 200GB HD Maxtor 8mb Cache

I also just installed windows XP on the 200 GB HD, needless to say the windows XP install only recognized about 130GB of the total HD size, so I downloaded SP1 did all the updates, restarted, and installed partition magic 8. It found the rest of the remaining space around 70GB and I made a partition for 70GB. Then I installed some DVD Burner Software that came with the burner and I installed the rest of the updates from MS, and all that. Only other items installed on this computer are: NOD32, AIM, and thats it! Can someone point me in the right direction on getting help for why it restarts? Should I just re-install the OS? the install only found 130GB of the HD Size when I installed the first time, what steps should I take if I re-install it to prevent this from happening again? Anyone had this happen?

Needing Help,
~PCTech

Memory problems should be the most common reason for sudden restarts I think. Maybe something happened in that box during the hardware install?

if not that - there is always overheating or a video card that
is poorly seated.

Could be an overheating problem too. Have you moved your computer toa new location where it gets less ventilation? I had similar errors. The whole system would just either hang or restart and I could not keep it running for very long at a time. I had just put the comuter on a desk in a corner and found that it was overheating and I had to put in a few case fans and all has been well. The new HD may be gaving off just enough heat to put you over the top. This seems to be a bigger issue with AMD (specifically athlon XP) chips than Intel. I hope you can solve the probem. Good luck and happy new year.

Does your computer restart randomly when you're not on the internet??

Right click my computer/properties/advanced/Startup and Recovery settings
Un-tick "Automatically Restart.
Check your event log for the serious error thats causing your restarts.
Right click my computer/manage/Event viewer.

Welcome "vis0r" to BetaOne.....the only thing that I would add is to clear event log and wait until it does it again and then go back into event viewer and see what was being accessed BEFORE the error. Be sure to note the time it occured and compare that to the event viewer error.
You will be able to see the error code with the BSOD when this is doneAren't computers and problems that they cause just make you want to scream?

Thanks
Dudelive

Well I saw one of the errors it said "fault or whatever in win32k.sys"
@vis0r, I unticked the auto restart thing and now I get to see the errors! they are below:

and one more said "blah blah blah ntfs.sys" I think I need to re-install? Maybe they are corrupt? anyone else having this problem? Those are the ONLY ones giving problems! :( I guess its good news since it aint a new .sys file each time. Also IE errors and says "mshtml or something has caused an error" how do i fix that?

What to do,
~PCTech

The 130GB problem is an XP problem. It is solved by SP1, or you might want to look athttp://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
You might want to check your BIOS too, to make sure it's 48-bit LBA enabled.
Hope this helps.

I figured out what was wrong with my computer! I think it was because of the OVERCLOCKING, maybe just maybe since it was giving errors and had new RAM and a larger HD and a new dvd burner that it was just to much with it being over clocked so high, after all I did up the voltage and maybe it was to much, since I set it back to normal clock speed, its running fine and not a querk in the world so far! Thanks for all the advice, i will post back here if something else happens

Thanks,
~PCTech

PS. I did reseat the Ram and did re-install the OS.

Sounds good. Also, here is another good place to look at crashes. ;)

drwtsn32

I was checking the clock speed of my CPU and it said this "AMD Athlon 1900 @ 810Mhz" I was like WTF? I was getting errors out the wazoo, lockups and everything, so I went into bios and loaded the optimized defaults and now its back up to 1.6Ghz (1900XP+) Any reason it should do that? I was like damn my CPU is going bad, maybe even my MB also. Are they going bad or is something else happening? Maybe a fluke? Any advice is appreciated

Thanks,
~PCTech

Probably no worries with that.
Award BIOS? After some sorts of BSODs (not all, I don't know what the trigger is) the BIOS automatically changes settings to a slow and safe speed. The cure is of course to boot into BIOS and set it back to the default values/where it is supposed to be.

Now the above is a guess. My AMD 1600+ is supposed to run at 1450 MHz (I think) but when this function is triggered it goes down to 1050 MHz. Every time it makes me buffled. It doesn't happen often, it's like a few times a year and so I forgot about it every time. The result is a looooong boot and everything working sloooow.
Yours is going down even more. Maybe it is supposed to do that or my guess is good but bad.

Yes it goes down to the default, safe, Front Side Bus for your mother board. It my case that's 100mhz and therefor when this happens my 2200+ turns into a 1500+ and my 2600+ turns into a 2200+ since the motherboard I use with it is 133mhz, and yea the fsb for it is 166mhz.

Now you should understand. If not then just change your fsb around to see the results. Like when I first install my two amds the both were running at the defualt speed. So of course it seems you only have a 1500+ and a 2200+ instead of a 2200+ and a 2600+.

I'm sure its going to stay this way for a very long time and it should. Even though I do think the first time around, when you first install the chip and turn on system. It should auto decect the correct fsb for you. But still reset to the save defualt level when something goes wrong.

Just my 2 cents.

cya,
Will

Thanks that clears up a whole bunch. Mine defaults to 100mhz fsb which is amd athlon 1200. Thanks for your help war!

Thank you,
~PCTech