New Computer: Mystery Reboot

[Piyono]

I just built myself a new PC:
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R
Intel Q6600
Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5G
PCP&C Silencer 500
Sapphire HD 4550
Seagate ST3250620NS
LG GH22LS30
AFT XM-5U card reader
I put all this into an AOpen H600A I had lying around.

I installed XP Pro Corporate 32-bit from a SP0 disc that I slipstreamed with SP3.

Everything was OK for a while until I discovered an undocumented feature: Once in a while, when loading Firefox soon after a fresh boot the program hangs, K&M freeze and the computer reboots itself. I've checked RAM with various versions of Memtest, I checked the event log. I've re-seated all my cables and cards I've scoured the startup lists. Nada.

I suspect I'm looking at a hardware problem but I don't have identical components to swap out for testing (I don't stock parts). So basically I'm stumped.

Any ideas before I schlep out to RMA this motherboard?


Piyono

 

[P5-133XL]

Your ram is dual-sticks? Remove one, try to make it fail: swap RAM try it make it fail. If it fails with one, than you know the problem. Fails with both -- unlikely to be ram, unless it is a brand compatability problem. Neither, then it is some other problem.

Try making it fail from safe-mode: still fails, then it probably isn't a driver problem.

Install a voltage/temp monitor that will alarm/log and see if one of these are a trigger.

Deliberately under-clock ram and CPU: Does this stop the reboots?

 

[Bozo]

:joker:Uncheck the 'Automatically Restart' box in System Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery. This way you will see the BSOD.

Bozo

 

[Fushigi]

Update the BIOS. Drivers, also, if you haven't already.

Make sure the pins holding down the HSF are fully seated; I've had a couple of systems where the Intel HSF was a royal pain to seat & popped back out if they weren't fully pushed down. Also check the pins holding down the chipset heat sink.

Run other free diagnostics on the CPU and whatnot.

Oh, try running without the card reader plugged in.

 

[Piyono]

See, guys, the thing is it's an intermittent sort of thing.
It's happened 3 times so far and the same way each time, but not every time. As it's difficult to reproduce it's difficult to troubleshoot. BTW, Fugushi, my BIOS is up to date and I double-checked the HSF already. I have UBCD and use it often. I don't think the card reader is a problem. Call it tech's intuition.

Mark, my RAM is 2 DIMMs and it's reported to work very well with this Mobo.

I think I'm just gonna RMA the mobo regardless; my system drive is emiting the occasional click / chirp noise (which is never a good sign), so I'm making a trip to Markham as it is.