Windows 7 Random Restart Issue

[GalacticaActual]

Hey guys,

I recently purchased a custom machine, and I've been dealing with this random restart issue in Windows 7 for several weeks now. Basically, after using the internet for a certain amount of time whether it is browsing or downloading, the machine suddenly freezes for about 10-15 seconds and reboots, giving me a Kernel Power error. When I check the event logs, this particular error seems to coincide with it:

Session "Microsoft-Windows-Setup" stopped due to the following error: 0xC000000D

And for details:

- EventData

SessionName Microsoft-Windows-Setup

FileName C:\Windows\Panther\setup.etl

ErrorCode 3221225485

LoggingMode 5


I've already done two complete formats of this HDD I have my OS on, and it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference as the problem keeps reoccuring. I also tried installing a new PSU going from 500 watts to 550, and that didn't change anything unfortunately. All of my drivers are up to date and I made sure to only install official drivers.

I tried disabling automatic restart in hopes of getting a BSOD I could see and a crash dump, but I haven't gotten any so far in this format. In a previous installation of Windows 7 when I had this problem, I had a BSOD that mentioned a tcip.sys error of some sort along with that same stop code. I haven't had that tcip.sys BSOD yet with this installation.

Lastly, I've taken this machine back to the shop where I bought this from numerous times and he has run many stress tests that would seem to eliminate a hardware problem outside of the HDD. I've done a lot of web research on this issue and have yet to come up with any kind of solution for this aggravating problem. It was mentioned that deleting the file in the Panther folder would fix it, but it only seems to prevent the issue from happening for a brief amount of time.

I'm really at wits end trying to resolve this and could use suggestions for rectifying this problem.

Here are my system specs as well:

OS Windows 7 Ultimate 6.1.7600 CPU Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33 GHZ, 2331 Mhz, 4 Cores Motherboard Intel® Desktop Board DG43GT Memory 4.00 GB Graphics Card(s) GeForce GTX 275 Sound Card RealTek High Definition Audio Monitor(s) Displays Viewsonic VA720 and Samsung SyncMaster 953BW Screen Resolution N/A Hard Drives 1 x 750 Seagate
1 x 1TB Hitachi PSU 550 Watts Cooler Master

 

[H2SO4]

Don't worry about the "Panther" thing or the "kernel power" event. They're not causal - they're side-effects of the problem.

It sounds like the shop is making you jump through hoops for what is very probably a hardware problem. Convincing them may not be easy if they're going to be pig-headed about it. A few suggestions:

1) Try going into the BIOS config menu and staying there for hours if necessary (don't boot into Windows at all). If the same unexplained restart happens while you're in the BIOS, it would really stretch credulity to claim that the cause is anything but hardware.

2) Make sure the BIOS itself is up-to-date. That can sometimes resolve similar symptoms.

3) Test what happens when the OS is reinstalled from scratch and then used without any updates, and without connecting to the internet. Literally no updates, no apps, no games ... nothing that's not on the Windows disc. Painful but potentially necessary as a troubleshooting step.

4) If all that fails to clarify what's going on, I can suggest a method to conclusively determine whether the reboots are caused by software or hardware, though it won't necessarily pinpoint which component in either category is the culprit (it may identify a specific software cause). You'll need another machine close by, and both of them will need to have either firewire (1394) or old-fashioned serial (RS232) ports. It's "last resort" stuff, so I'd suggest you try the other steps first.

Good luck with it.

 

[GalacticaActual]

Thank you for the suggestions. I've done a couple things since last posting: I did a repair OS install of Windows 7, and I updated the Bios to the latest version. We'll see if this occurs again, and I'll let you know.

By the way, the stop error I mentioned in my first post, could that be a way of detecting what the issue is more specifically?

 

[H2SO4]

...
By the way, the stop error I mentioned in my first post, could that be a way of detecting what the issue is more specifically?

Unlikely. A stop error ("bugcheck") is _always_ deliberately triggered by a driver or an OS component in response to an error condition that is considered irrecoverable. Something has to call the "bluescreen" function - KeBugCheckEx - in order to initiate that mechanism. That is fundamentally different to a situation where a machine reboots without a bugcheck.

Just to make things more complex, it is possible for certain types of problems to result in a bugcheck which "cannot display itself", for lack of a better description, the way that (for example) an error log concerning a dying disk cannot be written because the disk is dying. Ruling out that obscure possibility is the intent of the 4th point I mentioned above. Otherwise, mysterious reboots without a bluescreen are caused by hardware problems in >90% of cases.

Having said all that, if you upload the minidump corresponding to that bugcheck you experienced, somebody is sure to take a look. No harm in trying that approach.

 

[GalacticaActual]

I checked my Windows folder and did not see any kind of minidump file generated.

I should also mention that when I did take this machine back to the shop, he did end up replacing every part at some point with a brand new component. Same model, but a new part. He did this for the motherboard, CPU, PSU, etc.

I'm almost leaning towards a bad HDD and I'm tempted to purchase a new one and install the OS to see if that fixes the problem. The reason why I didn't think it was the HDD to begin with was that I had it in my previous machine with Windows XP and did not encounter any issues whatsoever. I believe that drive is somewhere between 8-12 months old as well.

EDIT: After updating the bios and doing a repair install of the OS, the random restarts have come back. So far have had two which happened after normal internet browsing. It really does seem as if this issue mostly happens under some kind of network load.

 

[H2SO4]

I checked my Windows folder and did not see any kind of minidump file generated.

I should also mention that when I did take this machine back to the shop, he did end up replacing every part at some point with a brand new component. Same model, but a new part. He did this for the motherboard, CPU, PSU, etc.

I'm almost leaning towards a bad HDD and I'm tempted to purchase a new one and install the OS to see if that fixes the problem. The reason why I didn't think it was the HDD to begin with was that I had it in my previous machine with Windows XP and did not encounter any issues whatsoever. I believe that drive is somewhere between 8-12 months old as well.

It looks like you're methodical. That always helps in these situations

Do you have another machine close by? I may be able to suggest some steps to prove/disprove the "hardware" hypothesis if you're OK to follow some esoteric instructions.

 

[torrentg]

Ya, sounds like hardware problem to me. I had that kernel-power error with random reboots, which continuously worsened with time, but quickly.

Pulled the motherboard and saw blown caps with tops open. Bought a replacement, installed it and system has been perfect since.

During my research with that, I did read of many different potential causes though. Almost all were hardware. My example is definitely not the only one.

 

[GalacticaActual]

I only have a laptop nearby at the moment. I also just did a SFC scan and that did not turn up anything.

Given the fact that the major parts have already been replaced, is there any chance that a hard drive could suddenly give me random reboots and what not? I find it difficult to believe it could go bad after such a period of time, but who knows. Additionally, when I did take this machine back to shop, and had the guy run stress tests on it, he used his own hard drive and each time I took it back for these tests since I kept having problems, he claimed nothing happened during that time.

Another bit of info I recall is after the first time I formatted the hard drive and encountered the problem again, I put Vista 32 bit on a separate partition and had the same issue.

 

[torrentg]

The things you say while testing make me think it is the HDD.

The error itself does not.

Are you completely sure he replaced each component to test as you've said? Like, did you see him with your own eyes? A lot of times, especially in busy stores, people could get shady and just tell you they did this or that while not actually doing it. Think car mechanic scenario.

I have a feeling it's the motherboard. Or perhaps he really is an honest businessman. How do the voltages look in the bios or from a Windows app that reports that? Close to what they should?

Do you have any other HDD greater than like 20 GB to try for now from an old machine or something?

In the meantime, open elevated command prompt and type chkdsk /f followed by the drive letter and :

i.e. chkdsk /f C:

Hit enter. Type y, hit enter. Then reboot.

Let H2S04 guide you with that laptop if it both it and your pc have firewire. He can get the pc to report an error to the laptop that you'd normally not be able to see.

Final thought: I have to ask this to get it out of the way. I know you'd probably have mentioned it if you were, but are you overclocking at all? Perhaps you are and even forgot about it? When I was finding my highest stable overclock, I would also get the kernel-power error and reboots because it was too high. Also check memory settings in bios. Make sure that timings are not too tight, voltage is proper for specific memory modules and frequency is stock too. If all that is, you could raise the memory voltage by .05v and/or .1v for testing.

 

[GalacticaActual]

I think this guy is pretty honest, my friends use him often for purchasing computer hardware and parts, and have known him for years. I was also present at the time when he was replacing these parts.

The other thing is that I just finished running Prime 95 and did the blended torture test, and it did not turn up any errors. I let it run for about 10 hours with my CPU and memory pretty maxed out.

I also did not overclock this machine in any way. I'll also give that chkdsk scan a shot and see if that helps. If H2S04 could give me instructions for setting up that test between my desktop and laptop, I will give that a shot.

 

[H2SO4]

I also did not overclock this machine in any way. I'll also give that chkdsk scan a shot and see if that helps. If H2S04 could give me instructions for setting up that test between my desktop and laptop, I will give that a shot.

You'd need both machines to have either:

A) Firewire (1394) ports, in which case you'd also need a firewire cable capable of hooking them up.

OR

B) Serial (RS232) ports, which would also necessitate having what's called a "null modem" serial cable/adaptor. Those used to be commonplace, but not any more. It's the serial equivalent of a "crossover" network cable.

Let me know which one and I'll type up what to do. Also, bear in mind that this procedure cannot identify which hardware component is responsible. It's primary aim is to conclusively establish - beyond any practical doubt - whether the reboot trigger is software or hardware. If it turns out to be software, the procedure can identify the reason for the reboot. If it's hardware, at least you can be absolutely sure of the "hardware" diagnosis.

 

[usasma]

2 "easy" tests to run are a hard drive diagnostic (free here: HD Diagnostic ) and a memory diagnostic (free here: Memory Diagnostics )

 

[GalacticaActual]

I'm running a long DST test right now on the drive, already did a S.M.A.R.T. test and it seems to be fine. I tried the Memtest but due to the fact that I have 4 gigs of RAM into the system, the test frequently crashes, so I can't really rely on that.

I think what I might do tomorrow is take my system into the shop and have the guy troubleshoot my hard drive instead of just the other hardware like before. I'm not really sure what is the culprit right now, because my HDD seems healthy, and my other parts have been replaced as I explained previously, but my machine keeps rebooting when using the internet whether it's browsing or downloading.

I just don't get it.

 

[torrentg]

In that case, have your tried any other drivers for lan?

Worst case scenario: Buy a cheap lan pci card and throw it in a slot and forget it. Maybe you could ask the pc dude to borrow one. I'm sure he has one around he could loan and sell to you if it fixes.

That's if it really does only happen when networking.

Or get this and disable onboard lan in bios:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=gigabit_lan_pci-_-33-156-139-_-Product

 

[usasma]

I've run MemTest on systems from less than 512 mB of RAM - to 12 gB of RAM without any issues. If there's a problem running MemTest, then I'd suggest that there's a problem with the memory subsystems that MemTest tests.

If the problem is limited to times when you're accessing the web - then a cheap NIC card is the easiest and fastest way to rule out that issue.

A couple of years ago a lightning strike blew out my youngest son's NIC card (through the LAN - not through the power). The system suffered repeated problems after that until we discovered that the lightning strike had also damaged the RAM. Replacing the RAM let him use the system without any further issues.

 

[starwarsyeah]

I've been having similar issues, random restarts and all, and upon research I tried several tactics, none of which worked:
upping voltage to ram, fsb, cpu, etc.
disabling automatic restart upon system failure
i disabled some automatic task that was scheduled called RACtask or something

None of this has worked, and the system most often crashes when I'm downloading large files (namely, Ubuntu ) or playing a video game.
Any suggestions would be awesome

 

[starwarsyeah]

guess i should add that event viewer most often says this:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
BODY{font:x-small 'Verdana';margin-right:1.5em} .c{cursor:hand} .b{color:red;font-family:'Courier New';font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none} .e{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em} .k{margin-left:1em;text-indent:-1em;margin-right:1em} .t{color:#990000} .xt{color:#990099} .ns{color:red} .dt{color:green} .m{color:blue} .tx{font-weight:bold} .db{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;border-left:1px solid #CCCCCC;font:small Courier} .di{font:small Courier} .d{color:blue} .pi{color:blue} .cb{text-indent:0px;margin-left:1em;margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;padding-left:.3em;font:small Courier;color:#888888} .ci{font:small Courier;color:#888888} PRE{margin:0px;display:inline} - <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />

<EventID>41</EventID>

<Version>2</Version>

<Level>1</Level>

<Task>63</Task>

<Opcode>0</Opcode>

<Keywords>0x8000000000000002</Keywords>

<TimeCreated SystemTime="2009-10-24T16:49:03.775623300Z" />

<EventRecordID>3783</EventRecordID>

<Correlation />

<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />

<Channel>System</Channel>

<Computer>Brian-PC</Computer>

<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />

</System>


- <EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>

<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>

<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>

<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>

<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>

<Data Name="SleepInProgress">false</Data>

<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0</Data>

</EventData>


</Event>

 

[usasma]

starwarsyeah - I would suggest starting your own topic so that your issue can get the attention that it deserves.

 

[GalacticaActual]

In that case, have your tried any other drivers for lan?

Worst case scenario: Buy a cheap lan pci card and throw it in a slot and forget it. Maybe you could ask the pc dude to borrow one. I'm sure he has one around he could loan and sell to you if it fixes.

That's if it really does only happen when networking.

Or get this and disable onboard lan in bios:
Newegg.com - TRENDnet TEG-PCITXR 10/ 100/ 1000/ 2000Mbps PCI Copper Gigabit Network Adapter 1 x RJ45 - Network Interface Cards

I haven't tried any other drivers for LAN aside from the official one intended for my card. I just spoke to the guy from the shop today, and he said Monday, he would be willing to swap out the motherboard with a different model. The NIC is actually soldered to the board at the moment, so when he puts in the new motherboard, he'll probably put a new card in as well.

For the Memtest, what happens is that during the test, the system reboots. I did some internet searching, and I read a couple posts where that seems to happen with systems that have 4 gigs of RAM installed.

Like I said before, the guy swapped every part out of this machine- motherboard, RAM, PSU, etc with the same model but a new part, so I'm kind of doubting it's any of those.

I should also add that I did the HDD diagnostics using official Seagate tool, and my HDD passed all tests with flying colors.

 

[GalacticaActual]

Well, some good news so far:

After seeing how my system didn't reboot in safe mode over the night, I decided to a diagnostic start-up and see if a program was clashing with the OS. I've been online since 1:41 pm today and my machine has not rebooted. So if my assumptions are correct, it could be a start up service or program causing these reboots.

These are the start up items I have:

Avast (enabled)
Java Platform SE 6 (enabled)
Adobe Reader and Acrobat Manager (disabled)
Adobe acrobat (disabled)
Adobe CS4 Service Manager (disabled)
Google Desktop (disabled)
Realtek HD Audio Manager (disabled)
Stream (disabled)
Utorrent (disabled)

For Services, here are the stopped ones that are non-Microsoft:

FLEXnet Licensing Service
Google Desktop Manager
Mental Ray 3.6 Satellite
Steam Client Service

I wonder if the Realtek Audio Manager is causing problems? If I recall correctly, some people have been complaining of issues stemming from that program.