Two computer questions.

[Amid Cent]

Buy more fans.

If that doesn't work, sell your computer on EBay and buy a new one from Dell. Isn't the $300 worth the aggravation of not having it blow up every several hours?

[pshabi]

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I don't know a whole lot about computers

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...
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Custom built by some dude on ebay

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Dude, what in hell were you thinking? Why do people throw out everything they know about buying stuff when it comes to computers? If you're not well up on the subject (and based on your assumption that you needed 2GB RAM, you're not!) and don't have specialist requirements (poker & movies/music don't qualify), you'll be fine with the cheapest thing Dell/HP/etc sell. Sounds like you've been screwed on this one, don't waste any more time/money on it, and get yourself over to http://www.dell.com

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Exactly. I can work with a computer but don't know much about buying one. That's why you go to someplace like Best Buy and have them hold your hand through it.

I got an Emachine for $400 or something and it only has 512 MB of ram. It runs like a champ.

Why would you buy a computer on ebay? Yuck.

[illogical]

I agree with the poster who said it's a CPU heat issue. That's usually the case the when computer mysteriously restarts. The guy who built your PC probably overclocked it... maybe that's why it needs so many fans? Normal computers usually only have 2 fans.

[grimel]

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I can work with a computer but don't know much about buying one. That's why you go to someplace like Best Buy and have them hold your hand through it.

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Blind leading the blind. If it isn't on the box they can't answer the questions.

I have an emachine only because if something goes kablooy I'm not afraid to open it up and do surgery and I'm too lazy/cheap to buy the pieces and put one together myself.

[Patchmaster]

That computer looks way overpriced to me, and is so far beyond what you need to play poker it's not funny. If you don't have a very thorough knowledge of computers, stay away from RAID. It's a needless complication for the average home user that is more likely to cause you grief than provide any tangible benefit.

If the guy you bought the computer from put 8 fans in it, there was probably a reason. My guess would be it's overclocked beyond the point of it being stable. Find a local mom & pop computer shop. Take it to them and tell them you suspect it's overclocked. Ask them to put it back to manufacturer's specs. They shouldn't have to do more than turn it on and fiddle with the BIOS settings. Once they do this you can probably get rid of a couple more fans.

[xenion]

I would think that overclocked cpu is the problem also. Just go into bios (hold F1 or possibly DEL key right when you boot). Then there will be a option to restore all defaults. It wouldn't be optimum performance settings, but it might stop the thing from overheating.

A buddy of mine just had a similar problem, the solution for him was to get a new power strip/surge protector. He had an old one that sits under the monitor and has switches on it.

[_dave_]

Hopefullty you can get to the root of this problem.

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It spontaneuosly restarts about every 2-6 hours if I'm either playing at least 3 poker tables or downloading torrents.

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First suspect is one or more faulty stick(s) of memory. remove all but one 512mb stick, run computer for many hours, see if it restarts. If it does, remove the last piece of memory and try another one. If this behaviour occurs with all 4 memory strips, it is likely the memory is not the problem, which puts the suspicion on the CPU.

Important situation: Does it NOT restart when only playing one table, or when doing nothing (surfing net / email non CPU intensive tasks)? Bittorrent can be quite CPU intensive, as can poker when combined with PT / Playerview / GT+ etc.

If so I would lean towards CPU overheating / faulty CPU.


Please post the harware specification of this crashing computer, eg Pentium4 2.8GHz/AMD Athlon 2800+, ASUS A7N8X mainboard / PC Chips 810lmr mainboard - any hardware information helps. My guess would be a Pentium4, since it can take 4 memory sticks - if this is the case, the CPU should not be capable of overheating - Intel P4 CPUs will run (very slowly) with 1 broken fan if they must. Disregard overheating cpu comments i have made if this is the case, and certainly suspect the memory.

Have you made certain this is not a software problem, by formatting the hard disk and reinstalling Windows XP? It could always be a software issue, but this makes it sound kind of unlikely:
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The restarting has been happening ever since I got it.

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[eric5148]

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A buddy of mine just had a similar problem, the solution for him was to get a new power strip/surge protector. He had an old one that sits under the monitor and has switches on it.

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It's on an APC battery backup plus surge protection.

[eric5148]

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Important situation: Does it NOT restart when only playing one table, or when doing nothing (surfing net / email non CPU intensive tasks)?

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Yes.

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Please post the harware specification of this crashing computer

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P4 3.4Ghz
ASUS P5GD1 motherboard
Corsair DDR400 PC3200 (4 X 512MB). I haven't tried switching them out one by one.
200GB SATA II 7200rpm

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Have you made certain this is not a software problem, by formatting the hard disk and reinstalling Windows XP?

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No.

[illogical]

I think you can check your cpu temperature in the system BIOS. If not download software to monitor CPU temperature. This way you can eliminate whether or not it's an overheating CPU.