Solve : Windows 64bit Restarts - no warning/errors?

1.	Solve : Windows 64bit Restarts - no warning/errors?
Answer» I had my computer built several months ago and it has worked amazingly well until recently. It has started to randomly restart without warning. It does not freeze or turn off completely - just restarts. I get no blue screen nor error messages. I only get the black screen that tells me windows was not shut down properly and the option to start normally or in Safe Mode. If I tell it to run normally, it will boot up again just fine. Sometimes when it restarts though, it will loop. It will try and boot windows and fail and want to do a repair. I will allow it to do a repair and it will then boot windows once its finished. It has looped indefinitely before and I've had to reinstall windows. I reinstalled windows two days ago and its still restarting, but always manages to reboot or repair and reboot. I have noticed it to restart when I play games (Star Wars: The Old Republic) and it has restarted twice when I alt tabbed and windowed the game to look up something online. However, it has also restarted on me while I was watching a DVD and while I was just surfing the internet without any other programs running. I have run eventviewer and only found kernel-power error with bugcheckCodes as 0s. I have also run MEMTEST and my RAM seemed to pass. I've also noticed my speakers make a short static sound when I turn on my computer (like someone brushing over a mircophone). My sound also seems a little off sometimes when I play video games. We recently installed a new dvd drive Blu-ray/dvd burner. The sound issue is a bit more new and do not know if the two symptoms are from the same issue. I've checked my drivers but see no explanation marks and drivers seem to be up to date. This is driving me crazy as well as my much more tech-savvy friends. I will be running more tests, but until then.. help!! Edit: I've also watched my temperatures and even while running the game, nothing went above 51 Celsius. It has restarted on me while looking for a solution online and nothing was higher than 41 Celsius! Sometimes it reboots after several hours of use, other times it will reboot after only being on for a few minutes. My specs: Windows 7 64-bit AMD Phenom II X4 965 Processor 3.68 GHZ 8 GB RAM (Corsair brand) AMD Radeon HD 6950 Graphics card Sabertooth 990FX Motherboard 600-Watt Power Supply (Corsair) 2 TB Hard Drive And um I dont know what else you'd need. so PLEASE ask lol. I greatly appreciate any input!!I THOUGHT the stock speed for the 965 was 3.4 GHz., so that means you are running an overclocked CPU. (Did you know this?) Have you tried running the CPU at its stock speed and voltage settings? Sure sounds like some kind of CPU / RAM instability issues. When you overclock, you are going outside your hardware specifications and you can run into all kinds of issues to do with e.g. CPU & RAM voltages and RAM type, timings etc. You might get more focussed and savvy help on one of the AMD overclockers forums. I see you had this system built for you. Have you tried asking the person who built it for advice? Have you done the obvious things like making sure the RAM is seated? I never noticed that before, but you are right. I still have the original box and it says it is a 3.40 GHz, but if I look it up on my computer it says it is a 3.68 GHz Edit: No I was not aware that it was overclocked nor did I ask anyone to overclock it for me or do I remember anyone telling me they overclocked it. I will have to ask them and find out. Quote from: Restart on January 22, 2012, 02:47:03 AM I still have the original box and it says it is a 3.40 GHz, but if I look it up on my computer it says it is a 3.68 GHz Then I expect it's been overclocked. Standard clock is 3.40 GHz but it looks like somebody has gone into the BIOS and tweaked the speed up by an extra 0.28 GHz. This can give a slight performance boost but may lead to instability. This is one possible cause of your issues. If you are not a hardware savvy person I suggest you try to speak to the builder. Or could somebody else have recently tweaked it up, thinking they were "helping" you? (round about just before the trouble started?) Has anybody, other than yourself, had unsupervised access to the computer, who could be described as a "gamer teen" type of person? My much more tech-savvy friend came over and messed with my BIOS when I first got the computer. As far I knew, he was simply looking at them because he was curious of how they looked on his motherboard. It is possible he overclocked it then. He has also came over to try and fix my computer when it crashed before, but never mentioned an overclocking. I will ask him when I see him next and I hope that will fix it!You may wish to review the motherboard documentation, and consider using the "optimized default" BIOS settings. of course, we may be barking up the wrong tree, you may have some other kind of hardware issue, but personally I would get it back to standard settings and see if it ran OK for a while. A Phenom 965 on the standard 3.40 GHz clock is still going to be a good performer. I will give it a shot and see how it goes. I'll probably try tomorrow after work since ive spent too much time on this thing already! The IRONY is I had this computer built because my 5yr old factory quadcore started doing the restart thing until it finally refused to start again (now that I know more i think i just killed the power supply lol). To have this computer doing nearly the same thing is making me wanna cry! I'll keep you posted on how things are going and I greatly appreciate the help!I spoke to the person who probably overclocked my BIOS and he says he did it a few days ago - which is not reassuring since my computer has been doing this restart thing for several weeks. Going to give it a try later tonight though.

Answer»

I had my computer built several months ago and it has worked amazingly well until recently. It has started to randomly restart without warning. It does not freeze or turn off completely - just restarts. I get no blue screen nor error messages. I only get the black screen that tells me windows was not shut down properly and the option to start normally or in Safe Mode. If I tell it to run normally, it will boot up again just fine. Sometimes when it restarts though, it will loop. It will try and boot windows and fail and want to do a repair. I will allow it to do a repair and it will then boot windows once its finished. It has looped indefinitely before and I've had to reinstall windows. I reinstalled windows two days ago and its still restarting, but always manages to reboot or repair and reboot.
I have noticed it to restart when I play games (Star Wars: The Old Republic) and it has restarted twice when I alt tabbed and windowed the game to look up something online. However, it has also restarted on me while I was watching a DVD and while I was just surfing the internet without any other programs running.
I have run eventviewer and only found kernel-power error with bugcheckCodes as 0s. I have also run MEMTEST and my RAM seemed to pass. I've also noticed my speakers make a short static sound when I turn on my computer (like someone brushing over a mircophone). My sound also seems a little off sometimes when I play video games. We recently installed a new dvd drive Blu-ray/dvd burner. The sound issue is a bit more new and do not know if the two symptoms are from the same issue. I've checked my drivers but see no explanation marks and drivers seem to be up to date. This is driving me crazy as well as my much more tech-savvy friends. I will be running more tests, but until then.. help!!

Edit: I've also watched my temperatures and even while running the game, nothing went above 51 Celsius. It has restarted on me while looking for a solution online and nothing was higher than 41 Celsius! Sometimes it reboots after several hours of use, other times it will reboot after only being on for a few minutes.

My specs:

Windows 7 64-bit
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Processor 3.68 GHZ
8 GB RAM (Corsair brand)
AMD Radeon HD 6950 Graphics card
Sabertooth 990FX Motherboard
600-Watt Power Supply (Corsair)
2 TB Hard Drive

And um I dont know what else you'd need. so PLEASE ask lol. I greatly appreciate any input!!I THOUGHT the stock speed for the 965 was 3.4 GHz., so that means you are running an overclocked CPU. (Did you know this?) Have you tried running the CPU at its stock speed and voltage settings? Sure sounds like some kind of CPU / RAM instability issues. When you overclock, you are going outside your hardware specifications and you can run into all kinds of issues to do with e.g. CPU & RAM voltages and RAM type, timings etc. You might get more focussed and savvy help on one of the AMD overclockers forums. I see you had this system built for you. Have you tried asking the person who built it for advice? Have you done the obvious things like making sure the RAM is seated?
I never noticed that before, but you are right. I still have the original box and it says it is a 3.40 GHz, but if I look it up on my computer it says it is a 3.68 GHz

Edit: No I was not aware that it was overclocked nor did I ask anyone to overclock it for me or do I remember anyone telling me they overclocked it. I will have to ask them and find out. Quote from: Restart on January 22, 2012, 02:47:03 AM

I still have the original box and it says it is a 3.40 GHz, but if I look it up on my computer it says it is a 3.68 GHz

Then I expect it's been overclocked. Standard clock is 3.40 GHz but it looks like somebody has gone into the BIOS and tweaked the speed up by an extra 0.28 GHz. This can give a slight performance boost but may lead to instability. This is one possible cause of your issues. If you are not a hardware savvy person I suggest you try to speak to the builder. Or could somebody else have recently tweaked it up, thinking they were "helping" you? (round about just before the trouble started?)

Has anybody, other than yourself, had unsupervised access to the computer, who could be described as a "gamer teen" type of person? My much more tech-savvy friend came over and messed with my BIOS when I first got the computer. As far I knew, he was simply looking at them because he was curious of how they looked on his motherboard. It is possible he overclocked it then. He has also came over to try and fix my computer when it crashed before, but never mentioned an overclocking. I will ask him when I see him next and I hope that will fix it!You may wish to review the motherboard documentation, and consider using the "optimized default" BIOS settings. of course, we may be barking up the wrong tree, you may have some other kind of hardware issue, but personally I would get it back to standard settings and see if it ran OK for a while. A Phenom 965 on the standard 3.40 GHz clock is still going to be a good performer.

I will give it a shot and see how it goes. I'll probably try tomorrow after work since ive spent too much time on this thing already! The IRONY is I had this computer built because my 5yr old factory quadcore started doing the restart thing until it finally refused to start again (now that I know more i think i just killed the power supply lol). To have this computer doing nearly the same thing is making me wanna cry! I'll keep you posted on how things are going and I greatly appreciate the help!I spoke to the person who probably overclocked my BIOS and he says he did it a few days ago - which is not reassuring since my computer has been doing this restart thing for several weeks. Going to give it a try later tonight though.

Solve : Windows 64bit Restarts - no warning/errors?

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