Computer restarts while playing games, here's some MBM readouts

[Yzzim]

My computer is restarting during games lately. My brother and I were playing Ghost Recon just fine last night, and now suddenly today we're having problems. Here's what Motherboard Monitor has for the readouts right before and right after my computer restarts.

Before - in game:

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Total number of readouts: 16 CPU Speed: 1331 MHz |
|Running from: 4/7/2003 8:58:59 PM till: 4/7/2003 9:01:14 PM |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Sensor | Current | Low | High | Average |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Sensor 1 | 22° C | 22° C | 22° C | 22° C |
|Sensor 2 | 37° C | 37° C | 39° C | 37° C |
|Sensor 3 | 26° C | 26° C | 26° C | 26° C |
|Core 0 | 1.81 V | 1.81 V | 1.82 V | 1.81 V |
|Core 1 | 1.55 V | 1.55 V | 1.55 V | 1.55 V |
|+3.3 | 3.39 V | 3.37 V | 3.42 V | 3.42 V |
|+5.00 | 4.73 V | 4.71 V | 4.81 V | 4.78 V |
|+12.00 | 12.43 V | 12.31 V | 12.48 V | 12.35 V |
|-12.00 | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V |
|-5.00 | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V |
|Fan 1 | 4963 RPM | 4891 RPM | 4963 RPM | 4950 RPM |
|Fan 2 | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM |
|Fan 3 | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+



After restart:


+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Total number of readouts: 1 CPU Speed: 1331 MHz |
|Running from: 4/7/2003 9:02:17 PM till: 4/7/2003 9:02:22 PM |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Sensor | Current | Low | High | Average |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+
|Sensor 1 | 22° C | 22° C | 22° C | 22° C |
|Sensor 2 | 37° C | 37° C | 37° C | 37° C |
|Sensor 3 | 26° C | 26° C | 26° C | 26° C |
|Core 0 | 1.81 V | 1.81 V | 1.81 V | 1.81 V |
|Core 1 | 1.55 V | 1.55 V | 1.55 V | 1.55 V |
|+3.3 | 3.42 V | 3.42 V | 3.42 V | 3.42 V |
|+5.00 | 4.81 V | 4.81 V | 4.81 V | 4.81 V |
|+12.00 | 12.31 V | 12.31 V | 12.31 V | 12.31 V |
|-12.00 | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V |
|-5.00 | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V | 0.00 V |
|Fan 1 | 4891 RPM | 4891 RPM | 4891 RPM | 4891 RPM |
|Fan 2 | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM |
|Fan 3 | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM | 0 RPM |
+-----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+



The only thing I see that is a little weird is the +5 volt rail is a little low while the +12 volt rail is pretty high. The temps look fine. Here's my system specs:

AMD Athlon 1.3ghz
512mb PC2100
20gb hdd
12x cd burner
Epox 8k7a
onboard sound
56k modem
Cnet NIC
300W power supply (Viking brand, I think).

I just had a power supply die on this computer last week. I put this (used) one in and it seemed to be working fine until today. I don't have another spare PSU to put in the case until later this week.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[bfonnes]

I have seen some reviews of Epox machines, or specs, and I think they always measure high on the +12 V. No concern I think. It is just as with ASUS where the CPU VCore is always a little bit lower than the setting it is set at...

Anyway, the main thing you should look at in a spontaneous reboot, IMO is a CPU that is running way to hot. If it is indeed the CPU, I would think those temps would be closer to 50 - 55 degrees or higher for the VCore, unless you MBM sucks. The readings could be bad, they are barely changed from right before it rebooted, or you posted the wrong reading.

As for PS voltages, the +5 V and +12 V are the most important I believe, but as long as they are less than + or - .5 V off I think you should be ok. Of course, you always want nominal whenever possible.

Bfonnes

 

[bfonnes]

BTW, I would suspect the Power Supplies.. If you need more info, then read Toms Hardware's, www.tomshardware.com, Not all Power Supplies are Created Equal article.

Bfonnes

 

[bfonnes]

I am not an electronics expert or even a pro by any means, but I would think the 5 and 12 Volt things should not fluctuate more than .1 Volt ever unless you are overclocking maybe.
As for the VCore, that shouldn't fluctuate more than .01 V. I don't know how realistic these numbers are, maybe someone else more experienced can back them up... Just a personal opinion on that one.
Bfonnes

 

[Yzzim]

thanks for the reply. I have no idea why it's doing this.

 

[fr]

I don't know how accurate my sensors are, but on my ASUS CUV4X-C (VIA 133A socket 370), the +12V is around 12.8v and the +3.3V is around 3.52v. The CPU core drops about 0.4 from what I set it to in the BIOS (1.65v in BIOS reports as 1.61v in MoboMon). I'm using an Enlight 300W PS. The readings were not as off when I was using a generic 250W PS. All seems fine to me though.

 

[Yzzim]

Originally posted by: fr
I don't know how accurate my sensors are, but on my ASUS CUV4X-C (VIA 133A socket 370), the +12V is around 12.8v and the +3.3V is around 3.52v. The CPU core drops about 0.4 from what I set it to in the BIOS (1.65v in BIOS reports as 1.61v in MoboMon). I'm using an Enlight 300W PS. The readings were not as off when I was using a generic 250W PS. All seems fine to me though.

hmm...okay, so any idea why my computer would randomly freeze in a game?

Like I said, I had no problem with Ghost Recon last night, but now I can't get C&C Generals to work at all. Haven't tried Ghost Recon yet today but i highly doubt it will work

 

[HaroldW]

"hmm...okay, so any idea why my computer would randomly freeze in a game?" That is more or less the easy part. When "today's games" are loaded, at times during the game CPU usage increases to near 100 percent. At or near 100 percent CPU usage, almost any weak link (hardware wise) in the system has a much higher probability of failure. Some possible causes could be: power supply going out of spec, CPU overheating, chipset overheating, video card overheating and RAM failure. For the overheating problems try temporarily playing your games with the case open. If the problem does not arrise, then it is probably a overheating problem. Other problems are harder to determine.

 

[WarCon]

If your temp readings are saying that your idle is 37C and your full load is 39C, then the first problem is MBM or how its setup. Those old T-birds ran hot and a difference between idle and full load of only 2C wasn't realistic.

The webpage says to use these. (Is it a new version or an older version of MBM?)

Sensor Chip - VIA686B
Case Sensor - VIA686B 1 / 3
CPU Sensor - VIA686B 2

Anyway, My suggestion would be to remount your heatsink with a decent thermal compound to isolate heat as being the cause of the reboots.

Also your 5v rails are dipping a bit much, if the sensors are accurate and for that mobo the 5v rail is the critical one. You may just need to consider getting a better supply.

One last thing to consider, is that you commented that your power supply died recently. Sometimes the death throes of the power supply can damage other equipment that are sensitive to voltage spikes. You might want to run some diagnostic tools like Memtest-86, Hard Drive utilities, Prime95 (check if the processor is running stable) etc........

Good Luck

 

[Dulanic]

Originally posted by: bfonnes
I am not an electronics expert or even a pro by any means, but I would think the 5 and 12 Volt things should not fluctuate more than .1 Volt ever unless you are overclocking maybe.
As for the VCore, that shouldn't fluctuate more than .01 V. I don't know how realistic these numbers are, maybe someone else more experienced can back them up... Just a personal opinion on that one.
Bfonnes

No its more like +/-5% which is about .6V on 12V line... youll rarely find a PSU that stays within .1 of 12V.... and VCore Ive seen vary .02-.04 on average which isnt reallt bad. As for 5V... out of the last 5 PCs Ive built I havent seen one hit 5V... most were at 4.7-4.9V

 

[Pyramix]

What video card do you use? That would be the prime suspect here. I have the original Radeon DDR and my computer does that when playing Neverwinter Nights, and Win XP reports that the problem is caused by the video driver. Since, I am not a big gamer, I just stopped playing the game. But if I were to try and fix this problem, I would first restore the video card drivers to the old ones (I keep updating my video card drivers to the most recent ones even though the new drivers are prolly only doing any good to the new drivers), and then look into the heating problem.

 

[chizow]

300W power supply (Viking brand, I think).

I just had a power supply die on this computer last week. I put this (used) one in and it seemed to be working fine until today. I don't have another spare PSU to put in the case until later this week.

Hijack your brother's PSU to isolate the problem....otherwise it looks like you'll be stuck until the end of the week. There's no point in over-analyzing your readings; it seems pretty obvious the new (used) no-name PSU is the culprit, as its the only thing you changed in your system prior to system instability.

Chiz