PC Keeps Re-booting, shop in town fitted a new m/board, using just 256meg new ram, with my AMD 2400XP cpu, and a new 350w PSU.I have 2 H/Drives and 2 Dvd R-W's fitted.

The guy in the shop advised a larger tower case, but I could'nt afford anthing else. He asked me to take him the XP software so's he could reinstall the OS as the PC kept blue screening on his test bench. I thought it better/cheaper if I did this myself at home though.

And now, the PC shuts down and reboots once the CPU reaches 38 centigrade.Why?

The next questions are - do I need a bigger case, or is something else at fault? Could it be a motherboard fault?

What's gonna be the best way to cool things down? I already have a meaty fan over the cpu.

If it had new mem and motherboard then my guess would be the CPU. Its not overheating so a new case is just garbage. Take it back and get him to fix it properly failing that try a replacement cpu if you can.

I'd say the Bios is set to shut down at 38°C which is hot but not that hot get into the BIOS and see if you can set it higher or disable it altogether

Just had a look around the bios system hardware monitor,
cpu - 56C
m/board - 44C
cpu fan 2786 rpm

could it be the hard drive that's getting too hot???

---- edit ----
duh I should read what people post first

those are the temperatures it's set to shut down or the temperatures it's currently running at ?

CPU is getting a little on the hot side, are you running gaming, vid editing or anything that is putting demand on the CPU.

mine did the exact thing quite a while ago,
sometimes id turn it on and poof it wud go before it managed to fully load.

do you also have a graphics card or is it onboard.

1. check that you have enough power, is your 350w power supply big enough. I had a 450w but just because it said 450 didn't mean it actually was it may have actually been giving out 300w. After upgrading my graphics card i had to choose a new power supply, My graphic card brought up errors saying not enough power. I recommend Antec true powers.

2. scan your computer for virusus, they can cause nasty problems such as these.

3. one classic reason is the ram it may be dead when you bought it. Crucial recommended that I downloaded mentest 86. http://www.memtest86.com/ Put it onto a floppy and boot it, if you dont have a floppy drive you will have to read what it says on the site. this does a test that can run for many hours although it if restarts while doing it then contact the ram manufacturer they may tell you to send it back for a replacement. Thats exactly what crucial did for me.

4. futuremark 3Dmark05 tests your cpu, graphics and memory you can choose to test them seperatly and its nice to watch, has graphic game clips. but you need to buy this. i think you get 30 trial though or perhaps you could find it somewhere free.

5, go into the bios and make sure auto restart is turned off i cant remember exactly what its called.

my cpu is doing 46 at the moment but im not too bothered about it, iv got the best fan i could find attached and iv had no problems. yours maybe 56 but dont forget it is quite warm out, case fans can help but they drain power from your power supply which also creates heat.

lastly i igree with Bikertec a larger tower is a load of crap.

easiest things to check are psu,mem

if these are okay try re-installing windows with basics, if the problem is still there at least you know it isnt the software.

try re-installing windows with basics, if the problem is still there at least you know it isnt the software.

and you'll have wasted the best part of an hour. Then will have to waste another hour performing the Windows updates, then you'll have to re-install all your software again:rolleyes:.

I'd say the Bios is set to shut down at 38°C which is hot but not that hot get into the BIOS and see if you can set it higher or disable it altogether

38°C is pretty low. Mines set to shutdown @ 65°C.

I had exactly the same problem as you, I asked everywhere, no one new the answer, then i decided to buy more ram and hey presto, no more bsods, or rebooting.

As per previous advice I would try running with just one stick of RAM (assuming you have multiple sticks) to check that one of the sticks isnt faulty. RAM is a common cause of re-setting PC's.

One other thing you could try doing is remove the CPU and heatsink, then clean the underside surface of the heatsink and the top surface of the CPU to ensure that the heat is being dispersed. Re-apply thermal paste between the two.

Not so long ago my PC was shutting itself down all the time - checked practically everything (including upgrading my power supply), and the CPU temperature was actually running ok. Eventually took the heatsink off and found that gunk had collected between the heatsink and the CPU and the surfaces were dirty. Gave them a good clean and never had the problem since.

Personally, I would also suspect the CPU overheating. I had this problem, but it was due to a dusty heatsink. Sometimes it would boot and run perfectley, other times when I did intensive work, it would shut down. I started to suspect temperature, so I got a monitor and found that it was running at around 50C constant, and would shut down when it reached 63C. As I hadn't changed any BIOS recentley, I opened the case, found the heatsink was dirty, cleaned it, and it now runs nicely at about 40C in 'idle'.

All of the above, doesn't help you much though :hihi:

Go into the BIOS and see what temperature it is set to shutdown at, if this is 38C, you have your problem. Set it to something higher, probably around 50C should be fine as I have heard AMD's run cooler than P4's. Most P4's are set to shutdown 60-65+. Also make sure the point at which your fan kicks into high gear is below the temperature at which it is set to shutdown, otherwise it is pretty useless.

PS, how do you know it shuts down when it reaches 38C?

PS2 :rolleyes:, never heard of PC's shuting down in relation to HD temps. So I would not suspect the HD of being the source.

Last year, my pc kept shutting down because of temps, I cleaned the heat sink and everything was fine and still is, but if it is an overheating problem, the machine would shut down, it wouldn't reboot. I really would check your ram and possibly add more if it's constantly rebooting and getting bsods.

Well...the guy in the shop handed you a malfunctioning RAM buddy...just replace that, all will be fine. I experienced the same prob and found this solution...good luck!