Spontaneous Reboots

[cclayton]

I have personal experience in this department--with the PSU, that is. I had a desktop a few years back that would reboot from time to time. Event Log showed nothing, other than the "The previous system shutdown at <date/time here> was unexpected. No blue screens, no memory dump files. I ran memtest86, a very handy utility. Sometimes I'd get a reboot during that, however, even though the tool never reported an error.

 

Interestingly, on one of the reboots, I thought I heard something. A day later, I heard it again, just as the machine rebooted. It sounded like a little zap, or buzz, and it came from the PSU. Replaced the PSU, and the problem was history.

 

The last time I heard that noise come from a PC was right after Matt knocked a glass of milk into his computer and right before a small fire (black marks on the case and smoke makes me think it was). I put the fire out by unplugging the PC. I was in high school then and computers were expensive.

[ikon]

You know there is a memory test tool that comes with windows 7. If you search for Windows Memory Diagnostic you can reboot into the test. Press F1 to get the advanced options.

 

I wasn't aware of this. Do you have any idea how it compares to memtest86? It's just that memtest86 has been such a stalwart of the industry for so long; wondering if the MS version adds anything new or better.

[Guest no-control]

Advance Memory Diagnostic can be accessed by either method.

 

Start -> "memory"

Start -> "mdsched"

 

I believe one runs in windows the other at boot. It is also part of the PBE on the install/repair disk as well.

 

Nothing better about it. Its just a different diagnostic. If I'm testing RAM I'll run both.

Edited December 3, 2011 by no-control

[ikon]

Advance Memory Diagnostic can be accessed by either method.

 

Start -> "memory"

Start -> "mdsched"

 

I believe one runs in windows the other at boot. It is also part of the PBE on the install/repair disk as well.

 

Nothing better about it. Its just a different diagnostic. If I'm testing RAM I'll run both.

 

Says you have to reboot to run it, so it must be a boot time scheduled task. Nothing wrong with that, just interesting.

[cclayton]

I wasn't aware of this. Do you have any idea how it compares to memtest86? It's just that memtest86 has been such a stalwart of the industry for so long; wondering if the MS version adds anything new or better.

 

I am not sure if it is better then memtest86. I have used the older Microsoft one and memtest86 before. Microsoft claims there are several methods to testing memory locations and there download tool tested all of them. I haven't used the one that comes in windows 7 yet, but I think it is just a new version of the one you could download from there site.

 

I do like that microsoft is adding testing tools to windows even if they are hidden. Gives me something to test with If I forgot a usb key with test software on it, or want to talk mom threw it on the phone.

[cclayton]

Advance Memory Diagnostic can be accessed by either method.

 

Start -> "memory"

Start -> "mdsched"

 

I believe one runs in windows the other at boot. It is also part of the PBE on the install/repair disk as well.

 

Nothing better about it. Its just a different diagnostic. If I'm testing RAM I'll run both.

 

This is not a bad approach one might do something different then the other.

[brwd09]

I am sorry that I have been away for a whle and never got aound to letting you all know what has happened with this proleem. I did run memtest and SpinRight and neither turned up any problems. I finlly decided to no RAID the drives and I built the server with just the 4 drives in the whs v1 array. As long as the server is accessing only one drive at a time there does not seem to be any problem. So I do beleive that the problem is with the PSU. It seems that the PSU can ot handle etended drive access of all 4 drives at th same time. I do not have a power meter so I can not measure what it is rdrawin when it is acessing all of the drives, but apparently it is too much for tis PSU.

 

So I have my server runing and I have been able to move all of my data to it. Eveything seems to be working fine.

 

Thanks again for all of your help

[ikon]

That's a bit scary. I don't think I would want to run a PSU that close to it's max load. I would get a new PSU with more capacity.