Problem with old N-Force system randomly rebooting, (long)

[axeman]

Some background on this situation. My in-laws live where there is limited internet access options. Bascially they could get wireless or satellite internet, which they aren't interested in paying a high dollar for, so they only have dialup, even though they are technically in city limits of a place with population of over 600,000. So, because of this, their computer is basically a solitaire and email machine. I recently "upgraded" them to an old NForce2/AthlonXP box that I had around. They don't have need of anything fancier, so I'm hesitant to tell them to replace it, since it's fine for their needs. The box always ran fine for me.

Random rebooting, seems like some sort of hardware issue. I only seen it happen with my own eyes once, where it was basically idling, then it rebooted itself, then as it was starting up again (windows boot splash), it rebooted itself again twice more, then was fine for days after that. I'm pretty sure it's not a BSOD, there is nothing logged in the event viewer (system rebooted from a bugcheck). I'm pretty sure it has happened even during POST.

Apparently this pattern has continued, now it is hosed because some Windows file is corrupt due to this.

The motherboard is an A7N8X-something. Caps look fine. It has a basically brand new Antec BP-430 PSU, and I put the video card, one ram stick, and hard disk from their old system into it.

So, old hats that know all about the A7N8X boards, what's your money on the problem? What I can think of or find:

1) It hates the extra stick of RAM, Google says some random rebooting with these boards was ram, even though it passes memtest fine, others have seen this. The stick I added is no-name, the existing ram was two corsair modules, maybe I should have left well enough alone.
2) I found one case of someone who had the northbridge solder joints cause this on this board
3) The basically new power supply is flakey.
4) One of the other parts I reused (video card, hard drive) is causing it, but I think this very unlikely.

I'm leaning towards just replacing it with something that's newer, but I thought I'd ask the gurus at TR, I'm sure lots of you ran Nforce2 systems back in the day. They are far away, and on dialup, so I don't want to miss anything.

[just brew it!]

Try downclocking the RAM. I remember having problems with an nForce2 board that wouldn't run 2 sticks stable at stock speed. RMAed it, replacement had the same issue. I think their memory controller was a little touchy.

[axeman]

Try downclocking the RAM. I remember having problems with an nForce2 board that wouldn't run 2 sticks stable at stock speed. RMAed it, replacement had the same issue. I think their memory controller was a little touchy.

Ah, yes, I've read more than one anecdote that says, "run it at the same speed as the FSB". I believe it's running 3 sticks at 400mhz.... I might just give them an Athlon II system anyhow, but I'm one of those people that *needs* to know what went wrong too. The horrible thing might be trying to reproduce it, such that even if it seems fine, it won't be. I spent a long weekend at their place and only seen it act up once in three days. Although if it's happening with increasing frequency, perhaps a piece of hardware is on it's way out.

[Arclight]

Try downclocking the RAM. I remember having problems with an nForce2 board that wouldn't run 2 sticks stable at stock speed. RMAed it, replacement had the same issue. I think their memory controller was a little touchy.

Ah, yes, I've read more than one anecdote that says, "run it at the same speed as the FSB". I believe it's running 3 sticks at 400mhz.... I might just give them an Athlon II system anyhow, but I'm one of those people that *needs* to know what went wrong too. The horrible thing might be trying to reproduce it, such that even if it seems fine, it won't be. I spent a long weekend at their place and only seen it act up once in three days. Although if it's happening with increasing frequency, perhaps a piece of hardware is on it's way out.

Common sense would dictate you check the individual parts you changed recently, since you say it used to run fine until you modified/added something.

Test with another PSU, with the original amount of RAM etc, one by one and all at once and see if you can make a config that works good. BTW if it restarted while loading windows, iirc, the boot sector or something something gets corrupted and i would advise you to reinstall windows. Just so you make sure you can test properly the hardware without worrying about the software.

[vargis14]

If you do re install windows make sure you download all the updates onto a flash drive or something.If you don't you will be spending the weekend just doing updates.
Good luck.

[axeman]

If you do re install windows make sure you download all the updates onto a flash drive or something.If you don't you will be spending the weekend just doing updates.
Good luck.

Already have that sorted... http://www.wsusoffline.net/
It's actually quite a challenge to help them out when you're so used to having 'net access as a crutch. Keeps me on my toes for sure.

[Geonerd]

Fire up memtest.

Gently wiggle the memory simms in their sockets - just a few degrees of tilt. If Instabomb, then double check the mem terminals and insert / remove the memory a few times, to (hopefully) grind through any corrosion, oil, etc. that may be on the MB memory socket contacts.

Move on to gently massaging the mobo, again while running memtest or a similar stress program. Twist a few degrees, and poke gently here and there. If Instabomb, you've probably got cracked solder joints somewhere. To the junque pile!

While the old caps may not be bulging and exploding, they may still be degraded. If you can't find an obvious physical problem, the caps may just be 'worn out.' If you've got the time and soldering ability, a set of quality replacements can be had for $10~15 on fleabay.

Those old XP systems are still pretty useful. Good luck!