ok its driving me nuts so heres the senario:

if i leave the pc on it may shutdown and restart on its own after a couple hours of non use or several times in a row after a few minutes of non use.It does it everytime i try to write to the cdwriter from any other pc on the network.if i try to write to the cd from my pc sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt.if i try to transfer files in either direction between it and another pc it will process about half a file and then reboot.

heres what ive done trying to fix it:

ive run various types of memmory 64mb,128mb,256mb,512mb(current)ive used pc100 and pc133(current) kingston,pny,and crucial (current)

ive used two different power suplies the one that came with the case..300watt and also tried a 400watt from comp usa. i put the old power supply(current) back in.

ive tried it with an ups installed and without the ups(current)...no difference.

ive checked and rechecked every card in the system including reseating the processor itself several times.

Asus probe shows nothing abnormal and cool as far as temperature.

Ive gone into bios and set power managment at dissabled user defined etc...Ive also gone into the windows power managment and set it to desktop and all the other settings never on the hard drive monitor etc...no change made any difference.Its set on never /never/disabled for now.

i get no error messages and no BSOD. its like someone walks up and hits the reset button.Ive watched it happen from across the room.scandisk runs and it goes all the way back to the desktop every time.I also have had no problems running any applications like MS Office, games, surfin the web etc other than what happens above....It seems to be random except for network activity.

Sysstem specs are:
Asus P2B
Asus tnt 16mb AGP video card
Sis 8 mb pci video card
512 mb crucial pc133
inwin q500 case
celeron 300 w/factory heatsink and fan
ls 120 superdisk
5.25 floppy ?
3.5 floppy mitsumi
digital research 40x cdrom
hp 9110 cdrw
ibm 5400 15gb hd
wd 5400 17gb hd
linkseys lan card
creative awe 64 sound card
creative flash2 56k v90 flex modem
i case fan in at bottom
2 ball bearing fans from radio shack blowing on drives and mb
i extra exhaust fan out at top of case.



Any Ideas?Something...i might have missed?Suggestions?




:-)

Wow, you have that system loaded to the gills. There is something that does not add up. You have two hard drives, two CD drives, two floppies, AND a LS120 superdisk. How?

The things I can think of:
. 1) The power management on the motherboard is being overtaxed. Is there a way you can track all the voltages on the motherboard to make sure they are not dropping too low? Could you easily try to run it without one of the video cards and the sound card?

. 2) The CPU is being overloaded by some process. Do you have something like a 400 MHz Pentium II processor you can test it with? Have you looked at the available System Resources before this happens? Did you pare down your startup files?

. 3) Device conflict. Try moving around the ethernet card and maybe try a newer driver. Did you check to be sure there are no errors in the Hardware Profile?

. 4) Software conflict. What software are you using to allow other computers to access the CDRW over the LAN?

Wow, you have that system loaded to the gills. There is
something that does not add up. You have two hard drives,
two CD drives, two floppies, AND a LS120 superdisk. How?

I dont remember which but either the LS120 or the cdrom is running off the soundcard IDE. i think its the cdrom.

The things I can think of:
. 1) The power management on the motherboard is being
overtaxed. Is there a way you can track all the voltages on
the motherboard to make sure they are not dropping too low?
Could you easily try to run it without one of the video
cards and the sound card?


I tried watching the voltage readings with the asus probe but it reboots too fast to see anything.

. 2) The CPU is being overloaded by some process. Do you
have something like a 400 MHz Pentium II processor you can
test it with?

was thinking about upgrading to 1.0ghz.I may have to try that, but really would like to know its not a mb problem first.

Have you looked at the available System
Resources before this happens?
Did you pare down your
startup files?

will have to look at both of these.


. 3) Device conflict. Try moving around the ethernet card
and maybe try a newer driver. Did you check to be sure there
are no errors in the Hardware Profile?


It's been running this way for a couple of years.The problem started suddenly with no changes to OS or hardware.

. 4) Software conflict. What software are you using to allow
other computers to access the CDRW over the LAN?

normally i transfer all the files to a folder designated on one of my partitions called burntemp.once there i just use the cdrw to write the disk.I cant seem to do that from either end now without causing a reboot.Before this problem started was able to use the hp cdrw software and browse to her computer that is shared and select the files to write to cd.For some reason doing that causes a reboot now.


im leaning towards a bad processor..what do you think?


:-)

I've got a celery 300 you can borrow to check that out.
ed

Accept challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.


General George S. Patton

Thanks ...i'll just hop on over there and pick it up....:-)
:-)

Heck Ed will just upload it to you,I remember one time he said he downloaded a monitor. :-)

LOL ...ill keep my fax machine on....:-)
:-)

a guy had a modem that was set to turn on when ever someone called his line, so when the phoen would ring his computer would turn on.................so try checking stuff with the modem......

Just a hunch,if you have Zone Alarm on that unit,shut it off and see if it makes a difference.

hey i never thought of that good idea ill try it...thanks
:-)

That's the track I'm thinking, software conflict. Ctrl/alt/del all background apps, disconnect all external devices, see if it still happens. Add them back in one at a time if it fixes it.

all apps except for....?leave what running?systray?explorer?bare minimum for win98se and network would be....?

disconnect all external devices,

when you say all external devices do you mean like printer,second monitor,etc... or do you mean internal parts like fans/sound card etc...?

:-)

Yes, all apps except explorer and systray (although you can lose the latter if you wish) and all external devices like USB things, printer (probably not necessary) and second monitor.

I would try stopping the apps first before I disconnected any devices other than USB just because it's easier.

ok tried the process again with everything off except for systray,explorer amd the i touch for the cordless keyboard and mouse..halfway through the file transfer from computer (b) it rebooted.I also tried Ed's celeron 300 no difference.....i then went to another computer (c)in the house and pulled the files from the other computer (b) to it with no problem.the problem has surely got to be with this computer(a).something in the network settings?any more suggestions?
:-)

I'm wondering if it sounds like the computer is powering down and the drives and fans are spinning up again when it reboots.

Most likely, it's something to do with your network. I've had trouble in the past where one computer on the LAN would lock up when it tried to access a certain other computer. The problem was with the locking computer, and I never did track it down, I simply reformatted and went from there.

Try a cable swap on the LAN, if you can.

I'm wondering if it sounds like the computer is powering
down and the drives and fans are spinning up again when it
reboots.


It acts just as if you hit the reset button.


Most likely, it's something to do with your network. I've
had trouble in the past where one computer on the LAN would
lock up when it tried to access a certain other computer.
The problem was with the locking computer, and I never did
track it down, I simply reformatted and went from there.

ive got a lot of stuff to back up before i do that i was hoping to figure out the cause.Curiousity is a part of it as i can use the other computers.

Try a cable swap on the LAN, if you can.


hmmm good idea .i think ill try that one.from the pc to the wall anyway...(i wired the whole house, room to room in the walls from outlet to outlet.


:-)

Did you get it?
ed

Accept challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.


General George S. Patton

put the coffee on.. i'll fire up my jet and see you in a bit....:-)
:-)