[solved] Computer randomly restarting

zee220 · 2020-07-06 15:45:43

As the subject says my computer recently has been randomly rebooting for no reason. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it and no consistent "thing" that causes this behavior, but it will occasionally shut off in a split second as if someone unplugged it and then start itself back up after few seconds.

system info:
Kernel: 5.7.7-arch1-1
DE: Plasma 5.19.2
CPU: i5 6600k
GPU: GTX 1070
Driver: Nvidia prop driver 440.100

Last edited by zee220 (2020-07-07 18:26:21)

seth · 2020-07-06 20:30:05

Temperature or PSU, maybe CPU bug - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode
Maybe a cold solder or lose connector.

zee220 · 2020-07-06 21:04:47

Thanks for replying! I'm fairly sure its not my temperature, though I never directly measured it I do know that my temps stay fairly low, it also wouldn't make too much sense for it to be temp because this doesn't really coincide with cpu or gpu intensive tasks, just kinda happens at random frequencies. I've had it happen in as short as 10 minutes of booting (rare) to about a day or two of up time (most common). Any tips on how I can check my PSU and microcode?

This is what I get when I run dmesg | grep microcode as the arch wiki suggest to verify that microcode is being applied

[    0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0xd6, date = 2019-10-03
[    0.149350] SRBDS: Vulnerable: No microcode
[    0.507005] microcode: sig=0x506e3, pf=0x2, revision=0xd6
[    0.507108] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.

seth · 2020-07-06 22:04:25

Unless the PSU is underdesigned (the pot. demand of notably CPU and GPU overcharge its capacity) you'd need to have it measured for misbehavior (ie. it's broken)

"Recently" seems to imply that this has not always been the case - any idea what you might have changed inbetween?
You could try the behavior w/ the LTS kernel and last but not least: do you have a parallel windows installation?

zee220 · 2020-07-07 05:16:08

parallel windows install? how dare you! (kidding ). I don't have a parallel windows install, and you're right in that this hasn't always been the case. I'm not quite sure when it started, I did recently get a new stick of ram (not the same brand as my other two sticks new one is vcolor, clocked down from 2666mhz to 2400) but this boot cycling has happened before that with the same frequency so that wouldn't be it. I'll give lts a shot but this has occurred over multiple kernel versions so its not a recent kernel breakage. As far as CPU and GPU power demand this really couldn't be it, this has happened even when I have next to nothing running, maybe discord and a few chromium tabs at most.

seth · 2020-07-07 06:26:29

(The idea was that windows might be hibernating and had set some acpi timers to reboot for an update - would have been an easy path out …)

Check the board connections, especially the power/reset buttons and the connections to the PSU. The former might easily come loose when you clean the chassis or some other wires are pushing against them.

How's the BIOS configured to behave on power loss? Reboot? What if you change that to "stay off"?
(To isolate whether this is controlled by any part of the system, BIOS, board or OS or is a genuine power loss that could also happen outside the system)

ondoho · 2020-07-07 09:32:23

So this is not a laptop.
It could have so many hardware reasons.
About the PSU: there are online calculators telling you (roughly) how much power the PSU needs to provide for a list of components. I'm sure RAM is on that list too.
Since adding a RAM stick was the most recent change, I'd go there first: Are all your RAM sticks compatible to each other? Can you swap them around? Are the connections clean? Is the RAM stick faulty? Does it fit the mobo? Does the mobo have some restrictions about max. RAM?
Etc....

edit: heat? maybe a fan connector came loose? maybe dust has built up?
Etc....

Last edited by ondoho (2020-07-07 09:33:05)

seth · 2020-07-07 13:26:46

zee220 wrote:

this boot cycling has happened before [I did recently get a new stick of ram] with the same frequency

Otherwise yes, that would likely be it.

zee220 wrote:

I do know that my temps stay fairly low […] this doesn't really coincide with cpu or gpu intensive tasks […] as short as 10 minutes of booting (rare) to about a day or two of up time (most common)

If it's not a cable, it could also be some static build up or the board touching the chassis - maybe some other device on the same wall plug…

zee220 · 2020-07-07 18:26:03

thanks everyone, since this is not a software issue ill have to do some hardware testing myself and figure out where to go from there. I'll mark this as solved and potentially update later if i figure it out

Arch Linux

#1 2020-07-06 15:45:43

[solved] Computer randomly restarting

#2 2020-07-06 20:30:05

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

#3 2020-07-06 21:04:47

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

#4 2020-07-06 22:04:25

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

#5 2020-07-07 05:16:08

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

#6 2020-07-07 06:26:29

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

#7 2020-07-07 09:32:23

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

#8 2020-07-07 13:26:46

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

#9 2020-07-07 18:26:03

Re: [solved] Computer randomly restarting

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