The misery of spontaneous rebooting

[grohl]

Stable 3500+ build, I leave it on 24/7 for folding and game occasionally. FSB is up a smidge and it's been stable at 2.23Ghz (just started OC'ing a bit).

This afternoon I took it to the garage and cleaned the fans/heatsinks out with compressed air. No big deal. I hooked everything up and started up fine.

A little background: CPU temps have always been what I thought were high, as reported by the ASUS software: 55C at 100% load. I have a Zalman copper heatsink and a Vantec Stealth fan that runs at ~1600rpm. Also, I have a double-slot Gainward 6800GT that I OC when I game - after startup it was at stock speeds. After the cleaning I was messing with one of the fans - it sounds like the bearings on one fan are going bad. I was playing around with the software which controls the video card fan speed (these fans are small and loud). I left everthing running to go take a nap.

Within 1-2 hours after the cleaning I found the monitor off and all fans on high - the computer had spontaneously rebooted for some reason. I had to pull the cord out of the back - it was not responding to reset or to the power switch. After the hard restart I have not been able to get the computer to POST.

So far, I have removed and reseated the heatsink&fan, also the memory sticks and video card. No POST. I cleared the CMOS. I removed the video card and tried to see if an old PCI card would work. No dice.


Suggestions?

3500+
ASUS A8V Pro
4 x 512 Corsair XMS
Gainward 6800GT
Audigy 2ZS

 

[grohl]

The plot thickens. I was able to boot finally using the PCI card.

Not sure if this made a difference. After XP loads, the weird thing was, I was getting "new Hardware found" for my RAID controller (onboard Promise). Even the temps are normal (!) at 37-39C, then a spontaneous reboot after about 5 minutes...after that, during the Promise BIOS screen, it says "BIOS not found" then starts rebooting constantly. I cannot get the MB or the RAID BIOS's to load without spontaneous reboot.

So then powered everything down for 15 minutes. Power up and I make it into XP again for about 5 minutes before the same crash. I verified the temps are ok - it sounds like an overheat, right? Then I started thinking, maybe the compressed air got into one of the harddrives...these things are sealed, right? Maybe a bad Mobo?

 

[grohl]

Could my power supply be the problem? Or should I start with RMA'ing the mobo?

 

[grohl]

***moan*** Now I can't get it to POST again, even with the PCI video card and using another PS. Guess I'll be picking up another MOBO.

I have a RAID 0 using the onboard Promise controller...can I upgrade the mobo as long as it has a Promise onboard?

 

[mphartzheim]

Last time I had a problem like that I had a voltage conflict with my motherboard and video card. That really doesn't help anymore, because nowadays voltages are the same across all components (to give you an idea of how long ago I had that problem, the video card was a brand spanking new Voodoo3 3000).

 

[SparkyJJO]

mobo just went haywire? My first guess...

 

[grohl]

mobo just went haywire? My first guess...

Yeah, I guess. Makes no sense though - I am trying to figure out how in the world blowing compressed air could have caused it...things were completely fine before I did it

 

[tiap]

I assme you used air from an air compressor in the garage. They are notorious for blowing condensation with the air. Could you have gotten anything wet enough?

 

[grohl]

Yes on the garage compressor. Mind you, I've done this several times throughout the yrs....but anyway...I didn't see any water on anything.

 

[thelanx]

Try using different ram or just one stick.