Random resets

When playing CS:S, my computer sometimes resets. I'll be playing, and pop, restart, without any warning. I've been playing source games since feb, and this only started happening recently (like in the last month). I updated my video drivers (from catalyst 4.1 to 5.4) and my motherboard drivers, neither worked. If I close all unneccessary background apps, it will usually last longer before resetting (up to half an hour or so). So.. anyone have any ideas?

Specs: Sempron 2600+, VIA somethingorother mobo, radeon 9600 pro, 512mb ddr400.

Might be the temperature ?

Check all the fans in your case, I had a similar problem. (One of my case fans stopped working)

Sounds like overheating.

Well, all the fans are working... is there some way I can monitor the temp?

Are you positive its only occurring during CS/S ?

My dad forgot to update his windows and got a worm that set his machine to periodically reboot.

Perhaps you have a similar incident.

Perhaps its a sign you should show more respect to HL2DM. :heee:

Seriously, is it only CS/S ?

It does sound like overheating, though it could be something else, especially if you're able to get straight back into CS after a reboot and play for a while; go into control panel > administrative tools > event viewer and check out the system and security logs to see if there's any errors or warnings you should be worried about, and of course run a virus/ad-ware check.

And yes, you might be able to monitor the interior temperature, if your motherboard supports it- look for a 'systeam health' or similar page in your BIOS, and consider putting on warning alarms if the temperature gets above 60? or so...

orph: I'm pretty sure its only during source games. CSS is the only game I play nowadays... I'd play on the snarkpit server if people were on there when I play of course.

Lep: Straight after a reboot, I can usually play it for a while before another reset (about the same amount of time as the previous go). Security log is empty, system log shows a few disk warnings and an atapi warning around when I was playing... hmm. The disk warnings all say an error was detected during a paging operation, and the atapi warning says ideport0 has old or out of date firmware. I'll run a virus scan.

My dad forgot to update his windows and got a worm that set his machine to periodically reboot.

I think you mean the
MS_Blaster virus. I got this as soon as I got my laptop. First thing I
did was hook it up to my school's page to check my e-mails, and
immediately got the virus! The way to tell that it's MS_Blaster is if
there's an error message and a countdown to when the computer reboots.

Are there any error messages before it reboots? Any signs that it's
going to reboot or is rebooting? Or does it just turn off without any
warning what-so-ever?

[EDIT] Oops! Just read the top of your post again! No warnings then. If
you're on a desktop, try buying one of those temperature monitor things
that goes in one of the CD drive slots. Coolermaster make some I
think...

I downloaded an app that monitors temperature (no money spending!), it says my cpu is at 48C right now. If I can figure out how to make it log temperatures to a file, that might sort this out.

(will virus check soon i promise...)

Your power supply might also be suspect. A year or so ago my power supply flaked out and (among other things) caused random restarts and the like.

Well, I monitored the temp while playing css between rounds, when I started playing it slowly went up to 52C and stayed there... then after a while it turned itself off. I had to go to the wall and turn the mains off and on again to get it started (it sometimes does that instead of resetting). When it was booting, I went into the cmos and it said the cpu temp was 60.5C. Once I got into OS the app i dled said 50C (it had a little flame next to it :/ ) and since then its cooled to 48.

I think you might have it maze... if its not temperature then its probably that.

48-50C doesn't sound TOO bad to me. Can you monitor case temperature
though? That should be around 25C I think. Of course, it could be way
too much, since I'm only going by the PC I built myself!

Well, I removed the side panel, and both the cpu and board temps are at 43 degrees. I dont have a case sensor... presumably that would be about equal to the surrounding air temp unless there was something seriously wrong. I'm considering getting a case fan (if this helps the problem that is), would that help much?

you know, we are back to my original question, "are you sure its CS/S?"

surely, you have other games that are card intensive? try unreal2, or doom3.. assuming you have them.

there is always the outside chance, you have dust on something vital.. believe it or not, i got some weird events with my old system once, cause the card had dust on it.

shrugs

hell, for all i know, you live in the vacuum of space, and there is no dust, but its worth a shot.

With the side panel removed, I got about an hour and a half of gameplay. Then it hung on a blue screen (not a normal blue screen, just plain blue), it wouldnt respond so i hit reset, checked the bios, the temp was 50C.

I think I just have to find a way to stop it going over 50. And I dont have any other cpu intensive games installed atm... :/ I suppose I should try some.

Hmmm... the last time I got a blue screen with source was the famous
"dumping memory" error. I fixed it by adding the following parameters:

+mat_forcehardwaresync 0 +snd_async_prefetch_priority 1

Try doing that. Come to think of it, whenever I got that blue screen my
machine would restart, and I would only see the screen for an instant.
If you're on a fast machine, it's possible it's too fast to see the
blue screen, and you've only just caught a glimpse of it now. There
were all sorts of fixes flying around the steam forums, including
checking the RAM, removing one RAM chip, etc. For me, those parameters
seemed to fix it. Having said that, the bug I had was on HL2 rather
than CS Source, and occured at certain places in the game.

Sounds like overheating as we have all said, post your specs.

What you could try is cleaning the CPU cooler (post what cpu cooler you
have if you can). My old cooler had so much dust on it that it was
doing what your's is now, my CPU temps were up to 60 and idling at 50.
After I cleaned out LOTS of dust my CPU temps dropped to just over 40
idle.

He already posted his specs, and his temps. 50C is nothing to be
worried about on a CPU, or at least not on Athlons (I guess Sempron's
might need to run cooler). Most articles I've read say 55C is
acceptable, and considering that Athlon's are tested up to 85C, I
wouldn't say anything below 60C is going to be a huge concern (though
you want it 50C or below ideally). Idle temps aren't really of interest
to you though, its load temps you need to find out.

I reckon its more likely to be your graphics card that is overheating
if your CPU temp was 50C after an hour and a half of gaming. Did your
graphics card come with any application that gives you its core temp?
Not sure a GFX card overheating would cause a restart, maybe somebody
else could tell you more on this.

That said, Loco could be right on the money. I've heard there is a lot
of people suffering from random restarts during source games, and I
think there was even a thread about it here not too long ago.

I'll try what Loco said, and I'll see if I can find a way to monitor gpu temperature (if its possible). Thanks for all the help guys.

Turns out the 9600 series doesnt have a temperature sensor. :/

I had a problem like that, my computer would crash and restart
sometimes when a game started play, sometimes hours into gamming some
times never... I just rolled back my radeon drivers (for my 9600 pro)
and found one that worked.

there was even a thread about it here not too long ago

Yeah, it was my thread. I had the same problem, and I solved the
problem by lowering the FSB speed from the BIOS for the memory
sticks. I have two PC3200 512 MB sticks, running in dual-channel
mode. I had to turn down the speed from 200 MHz to 166 MHz.
Apparently, there is a compatibility issue with Kingston memory for my
motherboard (ASUS A7N8X-E DELUXE with nForce2 chipset).

The strange thing was that the problem doesn't occur with any other
applications, just with high-end games (like Far Cry or Half-Life 2).

I suggest you run memtest first to check your memories. If
everything is fine, then clock down your memory to 8-3-3-3 from
BIOS. If you can play around with the memory voltage setting or
the FSB speed, do that too.

Good luck.