Spontaneous Reboots in XP

[fredfillis]

I having a reboot issue that may be related to encoding to mpg.

I use tytools to pull tivo video (ty) off the tivo to my pc. Tytools will multiplex to mpg.

I have also used DGIndex etc to convert some home video to PAL for burning to DVD. The last step is to encode with HCEnc.

Occasionally, when transferring / multiplexing from the Tivo to the PC the computer will just reboot with no error messages or event log entries.

Same thing happens occasionally with HCEnc.

I should be ok on the resources front, this is a newish machine with 2gb RAM and about 800gb of storage space.

Is it likely to be a codec issue? Where should I start? I've posted a list of installed codecs here.

[MoovyGuy]

You are likely overheating and as a result your PC is rebooting to save itself from melting ....

PC on the floor? Have a cat or dog? How much dust is caked in the vents of the PC?

[vico1]

From what I've read...for random reboots on XP:
"Open up your Contol Panel, open up the System box, click the Advanced tab.
Under the Startup and Recovery section, click Settings, and uncheck the
Automatically Restart option."

Now, this may or not be for your probs...might just cause "Bluscreen" with error codes.
These codes you can check out on "Google" or the M$oft site.

If it is a heat issue...well, time for a GOOD cleanin'.

[fredfillis]

You are likely overheating and as a result your PC is rebooting to save itself from melting ....

PC on the floor? Have a cat or dog? How much dust is caked in the vents of the PC?

I'm reasonably sure I'm not overheating. I have about 5 fans in this case but I'll get some monitoring software on there to gather some data.

Vico, that's a good idea! I've tried some of the windows tools available (debugview, processmon) to see if I can pinpoint the issue but so far no luck. Just for a change, a BSOD would be helpful!

[vico1]

fredfillis...
Yup, Ive got motherboard monitor...pretty good for checking heat temps.
(not exact...close enough tho)

Also make sure you're not runnin' too many background apps while encoding.
(like auto-defrag, A/V apps, ect) don't want to put too much strain on that CPU.
Encoding is CPU intensive as it is!

[JohnnyMalaria]

Other possibility - bad driver(s) for your hardware.

One of the most common culprits is buggy soundcard drivers.

Hardware is supposed to behave to Windows requests for power management and stuff - many older drivers are buggy in this respect.

I have a soundcard that has crapola drivers - at seemingly random intervals, this would cause a BSOD and reboot....

[fredfillis]

I don't think temps are my issue. Last night I thrashed the machine doing an encode with HCEnc while rendering with Vegas Movie Studio and running all the normal background rubbish.

Here is the speedfan plot.

Interestingly, if you look at the area after encoding had finished, I was running a transfer with TyTools for the first 30 minutes or so. The CPU temp dropped down to more or less idle. This also leads me to suspect that temps are not the issue here. Of course, everything worked as it should so maybe I'm not that much smarter.

[fredfillis]

Vico's tip about turning off the auto reboot was a good one.

My random error appeared (at random, no load) and I got a BSOD. However, because I had no page file on my boot drive I did not get a minidump. The error I'm getting is something like IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL which, apparently, is related to a problem driver. So now I'm waiting for it to happen again so I can look at the minidump for pointers on which driver is causing the problem.

[kicko]

could be your ram went wonky, you might want to check there

[Soopafresh]

Quite often that error message is due to bad video drivers.

[fredfillis]

Quite often that error message is due to bad video drivers.

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between "bad" and ATI. Thanks for the tip though. I'll look at those first when next it occurs!

Thx also Kicko, I'm going to give memtest a try over the weekend to check out the RAM. I've had my suspicions for quite a while that all is not perfect in RAM although the random reboot is a recent thing.

[LSchafroth]

Runa test with memtest86+.

Memory is pretty netorious for causing random reboots. A flakey power supply can do it. A simple tester can give false readings as they don't put a load on the supply when testing. It may show good, but under load it chokes.

LS