[Poreponko]

Got a decision to make.

Over the past few months I've been getting a lot of spontaneous reboots. No BSOD, no advance warning, no nothing. My CPU (Prescott 3.2 GHz now clocked to 3.28 GHz) is stable at 51C idle/65C load, my water cooling rig is working nominally, and I've done swept the hard drive and registry for culprits. Thought it was iTunes 8 (always seemed to happen about 30 seconds into Zebra's "Who's behind the door? ) but after going in and uninstalling (and removing all the hooks left in the registry) and then reinstalling, I've been getting the same spontaneous reboots. After testing I know that I have two dead USB headers on the mobo (Intel D865PERL) but both of my SATA headers are good. I've ordered two SATA cables from performance-pcs.com (should be here tomorrow) and will test that theory out, but I suspect that my mobo is toast.

Now, I've been looking at upgrading to a socket 775 mobo, but that'll mean a new CPU, new memory, and a new video card. Total cost there should be around $600. Would rather nurse this baby along some. Any advice?

[P9CCd35R]

Spontaneous Reboots usually indicate a power problem. How good is your power supply. Also would you know a leaky capacitor looks like? Bad caps are an all too common problem.

If you don't want the expense of a whole new setup do a froogle or pricegrabber search on your motherboard. You may find an exact replacement cheap. (or one that can accept your hardware.)

[zoppiklonikaa]

i doubt this is useful ... but i do try to be careful around my machines.

[LfYaRf1S]

I used to have those spontaneous reboots caused by people putting viruses etc in my computer.

Nline's saying it indicates something wrong with the power is interesting. But no, a certain website I'd been a couple of years back would do it when I'd go to it. So I stopped going to that website several years ago.

[JesexhiSeeces]

The PSU is a Zalman ZM600 and my onboard power monitor hasn't flagged any problems that I'm aware of. Pretty much rock steady PSU. I could ensure that the connectors are connected, but as you know, once those puppies are seated on the mobo, sometimes it takes an Act of God to pull them off. Could be the connectors themselves, though...will look at them when I disassemble things this weekend. Need to do a flush and fill of the liquid cooling setup, anyway.

[Uttephabeta]

Any bios updates for this mobo? My Dell (from Hell) work laptop would spontaneously reboot on me when it was in its dock. Until I flashed the latest bios on it; now no more problems.

[NowFloabDow]

Any bios updates for this mobo? My Dell (from Hell) work laptop would spontaneously reboot on me when it was in its dock. Until I flashed the latest bios on it; now no more problems.

Nope, that was the second thing I checked. The BIOS for my Intel D865PERL was last updated on 2/15/2005. That's old for a BIOS, but this is an old board, as boards go.

New SATA cables (glow blue under UV light, no less) arrived and are installed. I've reseated the power to the mobo and checked the 5.5V molex connectors everywhere. My Intel utility shows my +12V at 12.250 V, +5V at 4.95V, and +3.3V at 3.28V. They do show some minor fluctuation, less than 2% either way. No busted or leaking caps that I can see on the mobo. Reseated the USB headers and the fan connections to the mobo (have more fans than headers) and made sure that there was no bare female molex connectors anywhere near metal. Going to leave the PC up overnight and see if I get a reboot. If so, I'll provide some economic stimulus to newegg.com tomorrow.