PC reboot after 5 minutes

[Blagard]

I wonder if I am missing something in my windows 7 setup because I have a new weird problem in Aces High.

I have not been online in the games for a while so thought to try out Aces High on my new Windows 7 installation (64bit). So about a week ago I got into the air and after around 5 minutes my PC shut down and rebooted on its own. I didn't bother re-logging until a few days later and there was a weird message of "Your 5 mins of AI flight time was expired" when I entered the LW arena. I logged off without flying to see if I could find any info on that but didn't.

A short while ago I logged on again to LW, upped and found an F4U, shot it down and on the way back again my PC rebooted just about 5 minutes after entering the LW arena. Even weirder was that when I re-logged I was reconnected to the host on the same flight (thank god for the autopilot!) this was a first for me as I have never had a airbourne reconnection before.

So what is it mucking my PC about after 5 minutes on Aces High ? - This does not happen with any other program and the fact that I half expected it would happen only reinforces my suspicion something is not right with the way I run it. I checked the windows firewall to ensure I had allowed Aces High as an allows program. I suspect the 5 minutes of AI is a co-incidence as that was probably what kept me in the air when I logged back in.

Edit:
I think I will try it under my old installation of Windows XP to check if it runs OK there!

Update on timing - The film recorder captured the period before the reboot and it was 8 minutes into the flight. LOL nice clean kill of the F4u to view!

Just tried in XP and no problems, 11 minutes 2 kills and no dump.

[SIK1]

There is a new feature in AH that will let you continue with a flight after a disco if you can get back in time. I believe that the "5 minutes of AI flight time expired" is in reference to the AI taking over when you are discoed, and not getting back in time to continue your flight. The second time you were discoed you obviously got back in time to continue with your flight.

The issue with your comp shutting down I have no idea what can be causing that. I'm not very familiar with win7 but usually a shut down would indicate an issue within the OS, or with the comp such as overheat.

[Rich46yo]

Unfortunately there are any number of reasons why a computer would go into a boot loop cycle. If it only happens in Aces High the first thing you'll want to do is reinstall the program. Its probably a missing file or a registry issue.

It can also happen due to hard ware. Try reseating stuff, most of all your graphics card. If it happens in other games then its probably the graphics card, but it could be other hard ware or your power supply. The last time this happened to me re-seating stuff fixed it. It could also be over heating.

Re-seating stuff and maybe a windows repair or system restore are the most painless things to try.

[Skuzzy]

This is normally heat related, or power related.  Both are more controlled in Windows 7, than Windows XP.  I lean more towards the power supply side on this one.  It is a classic symptom of a power supply crow barring from the power load.

[Blagard]

Thanks for the replies,

I must admit that a hardware problem with the PC is something I have in mind but it is because it has only happened in Windows 7 running Aces High I needed to explore that possibility. - I don't play any other games so it is probably the only time when my system has to work a bit more!

I have not been able to identify any heat issues and think that is unlikely in this case (but not ruled out). The PSU is definitely on my list of suspects and I have one fan in the PSU that gets loud/squeaky at random times, even occasionally on booting up.  The good news is I have a PC not in use so can try the PSU from that to see if the problem goes away.

[Bizman]

Since you don't play other games, HeavyLoad by Jam Software might be your tool to simulate both CPU and GPU intensive gaming. Your motherboard BIOS most likely has an option to view both voltages and temperatures under the title of "computer health" or similar. If HeavyLoad crashes your computer, go to BIOS settings to look at the temperatures. The most used buttons for going to Setup are F2 and Delete, take a close look while booting to see which if you don't already know.

[Blagard]

I have already checked the BIOS for Temperature and Voltage right after the reboot and no problems there. The CPU is reported well within temperature limits. The 12v is a little low but within 5%. The graphics card is something that I can't really check except that the fan is running, so for the time being I have to hope it is not that. I could use the card from my unused PC if it comes to it for checking purposes, but would have to set AH graphics lower!

I have an aversion to installing any software unless I really need to - So thanks for the idea of "Heavyload" but there's no chance of me installing it!

I have now extracted my older PSU from a PC I don't use anymore and will fit it in the next day or so. Essentially I will test what I can one step at a time. I try to be methodical about my approach to fault finding so hope to pin it down sooner or later.

My wifes PC once started to do random reboots and I pinned that one down to the motherboard. I nearly changed it before spotting the slightly swollen capacitors and just replaced them instead and it was fine again - much cheaper than a new motherboard! So I'm not a complete newbie to trouble shooting, but it always pays to ask around. For what it's worth I regret chucking out some electrical gear over the years as I have now fixed four things that have failed with duff capacitors, the other three, a pressure washer (huge starter cap), DVD player, and a digital tuner.  

[Bizman]

FWIW HeavyLoad can be run without installing. Download the zip version, unzip and run. It can be run from an USB stick if needed, allowing to download and unzip with another computer than yours.

Using another PSU for testing is an excellent idea, as many if not most of the problems are due to a slowly failing PSU. Since you seem to be familiar with swollen caps, checking the ones of your PSU wouldn't hurt. To cover my bacon, I must warn you that opening it is allowed only to a qualified person due to risk of even fatal electric chocks. But you knew that, didn't you, since you've dealt with the gadgets you mentioned.

[Blagard]

Using another PSU for testing is an excellent idea, as many if not most of the problems are due to a slowly failing PSU. Since you seem to be familiar with swollen caps, checking the ones of your PSU wouldn't hurt. To cover my bacon, I must warn you that opening it is allowed only to a qualified person due to risk of even fatal electric chocks. But you knew that, didn't you, since you've dealt with the gadgets you mentioned.

We shall see over the next day or so as the PSU has now been swapped over! - Actually a bit tidier inside now as the older PSU is a modular ANTEC which also happens to be what my case is. It should feel at home there!

 

[Blagard]

Well that was interesting. - I went  online to the TA as I didn't want a dump in the MA and basically the same happened again with the replacement PSU in about 3 minutes. - My old modular Antec PSU is noticeably quieter than the PSU I swapped out, so it will stay

For my next move I decided that as I had done clean installs for the new Windows 7 (64bit) there should not be any problem in the registry, but all the same I ran a registry checker and there we quite a few issues raised, in particular with respect to shared ddl's. I can only put this down to installing things like Microsoft Office 2007 and even an old copy of Visio. All of which seem fine in Windows 7 but according to forums have a history of screwing some things up. So I cleaned the registry and went back on line in AH. So far I no longer have any problem after what must be an hour (4 kills no deaths  ).
Thinking back there was one sneaky program that got installed that I didn't recall doing deliberately. It was some sort of pop up that showed links to sales sites when I ran IE10. I uninstalled it straight away and checked for virus's and malware afterwards, just in case! Maybe that did something, otherwise I am still at a loss to what went wrong. - I just hope it continues to as today but will post again if the problem rears its head again.

[Bizman]

Now that was interesting! For what I've experienced, a couple hundred registry issues is more of a rule than an exception after finishing a clean install with all updates and other installations. Another noticeable feature is, that the HDD can be quite fragmented even after such clean installation procedure!

You might be on the right track suspecting the sneaky program. It may have been quite harmless per se, but it may have left the door open for something nasty, or infected by something like that. I've seen viruses trying to sneak into device drivers, causing a blue screen because the driver got corrupted to the point Windows couldn't load it. A Windows file may also get affected that way, so I recommend you toboot from the Windows installation disk, choose Repair and run chkdsk /r from the command prompt of it. SFC /scannow wouldn't hurt either to check all Windows files were intact. And of course, if it turns out to be related to unwanted software, deleting all restore points might be wise.

[Blagard]

The hunt is still on! - I was using the film viewer quite a bit after my uninterrupted AH session on line and it rebooted 

Bizman, I agree that doing chkdsk /r is a good idea as well as running other checks. Before hitting the sack last night I set Memtest86 running and this morning was pleased to see some seven hours after running, that there were no errors. Also checked the BIOS again for temperatures and running nice and cool. After looking at those thing most likely to be the source, the process is now more of what is OK! - So far the facts are that it has rebooted only in AH or AH Film Viewer and only on my Windows 7 drive. My XP installation is on a separate drive. The PSU has been eliminated as a likely cause because the same problem occurred on different PSU's. The Memory seems OK. The timing of the reboots is not consistent. So some Hard drive checks will be the next thing I do.

I am also thinking of rolling back my Nvidia driver as it may currently be one placed on the system by windows update. (I always refused to let windows update renew my XP Nvidia drivers - if it isn't broke don't try to fix it!)

[Bizman]

LOL, information coming drop by drop! So it's only the Win7 installation that crashes. XP on the same machine, different hard disk, stable as rock. Crashes only in AH and FilmViewer - on the other hand they're the only ones using your video card effectively. And now the fact that you might just have at least remnants of an Nvidia driver by Windows Update.

Do you use some video driver cleaner program, or are they on your list of not wanted? One of those might help getting totally rid of the Microsoft driver. If I dare to suggest another tool to install, it would be WhoCrashed by Resplendence Software. If the crash has time write a minidump, WhoCrashed can translate it into easy-read mode, even telling which driver or dll was the culprit for the crash.

And of course, running a hard disk diagnosis is one obvious test to do. HDD's can go bad in mere months with bad luck, even faster.

[Skuzzy]

This is turning into an interesting thread.  Hopefully we can all learn something from it.  One thing I have always tried to stress about Windows is the fact that any program one can install has the ability to impact any other program already installed.

Anything from Roxio or Intuit are shining examples.

[Blagard]

LOL, information coming drop by drop! So it's only the Win7 installation that crashes. XP on the same machine, different hard disk, stable as rock. Crashes only in AH and FilmViewer - on the other hand they're the only ones using your video card effectively. And now the fact that you might just have at least remnants of an Nvidia driver by Windows Update.

Do you use some video driver cleaner program, or are they on your list of not wanted? One of those might help getting totally rid of the Microsoft driver. If I dare to suggest another tool to install, it would be WhoCrashed by Resplendence Software. If the crash has time write a minidump, WhoCrashed can translate it into easy-read mode, even telling which driver or dll was the culprit for the crash.

And of course, running a hard disk diagnosis is one obvious test to do. HDD's can go bad in mere months with bad luck, even faster.

Yeah! - Sorry about the information flow, but being a bit under the weather at the moment means anything requiring thought is hard work at the moment 

Anyway here is the next drop or two. After running Chkdsk /r  a very small amount of allocated space was being reported as empty or it could have been the other way around. Sorry about that but I forgot to note it down before exiting the command prompt! Small as it was, it could have some bearing. Another drop, relevant or not, is that I had decided to let Windows 7 create the hidden partition when installing it, so I used diskpart to remove the original single partition on the drive before letting windows reformat the drive for the installation. I did use quick format.

The next drop  Listed on optional windows updates a new Nvidia driver was available for install (since around 20th Sept). When I looked at the current driver installed I was surprised to see it had been updated in August 2013 - So why a further release so soon afterwards unless the August one is flaky? So in this instance I have just installed it. - I also checked the Nvidia website and Microsoft was simply releasing what they have done.

I plan to do nothing more for the moment to see how things run. Normally I would only do one step at a time then check, but seeing that Nvidia driver information, I felt it was such a likely source of the problem I just had to do something.

I don't use any sort of driver clearer - I am aware Nvidia have one to clear out all there own video drivers when needed and that is pretty much the only one I would use.

As useful as your "WhoCrashed" sounds, I can't see myself installing it as simply I don't know if I could trust it! - I would have to read up on it before considering it further. I don't trust even Microsoft's software unless it has been tried and tested to death!

SFC /scannow  is new to me and I have not run it yet, but will if the problem persists. After reading up on it, it seems to be a seriously useful utility and I can't believe I was unaware of it. - So thanks for that pointer.