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General discussion

The perennial question

Mar 3, 2004 11:02PM PST

About the system rebooting for no apparent reason. Mine did that today while idle. Yesterday I ran Norton A/V, AdAware, SpyBot, CWShredder with their latest definitions and upgrades and found no virus or parasites. I repeated it today after the rebooting and found also nothing. My system is protected by Zone Alarm.
I have no problem so far with my power unit which I think is 400W.

So what's wrong?

Discussion is locked

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Re:The perennial question
Mar 3, 2004 11:52PM PST

Home systems often are not for 24x7 usage.

Possible effects are:

1. AC power dip. Hint: supersizing a power supply really helps here. That oversized PSU will last more milliseconds if the AC drops out.

2. Alpha particle upsets a memory location or registry in the CPU. Light reading about SEU and more with this Google -> http://www.google.com/search?&q=alpha+particle+upset+computer

3. In short, you may never know. This OS is not going to reveal all possible upsets. Did you look in the Event Viewer for a clue?

4. Heat. Simply and not so simple is that many look at the CPU temperature but don't know what else can be running warm. If the upset happens often enough, I remove the case cover and ask "Better, same or worse?"

Bob

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Re:Re:The perennial question
Mar 4, 2004 1:04AM PST

Robert could you tell me please how to check the CPU temperature. Thank You. Ann

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CPU temp.
Mar 4, 2004 2:37AM PST

Given no make/model of such, the Radio Shack indoor/outdoor thermometer is what I use. This works nicely in that I can get the DELTA (difference) from inside to outside the case.

Bob