[ILUG] [OT] My crashing problem Part II

[Carolan Goggin]

Hello again,

>Not all fans support monitor software, either in the bios or anywhere
>else. Check to see if it has 3 wires going to it. Normal (un-monitored)
>fans only have 2 wires (a positive and a negative), whereas a moniterable
>fan has a third wire. Apart from that, I can't think of anything off-hand
>that would cause that kind of behaviour, unless you're having power
>problems - ie. spikes or brownouts. Anyway, I hope that's of help

Eh .. there's supposed to be wires from the fan into the motherboard, is
there?  Because there's a place for me to plug wires in, but no wires to
plug in.  That certainly explains why it was reporting that the fan wasn't
spinning.  Thanks a million.  Should I be worried that there aren't any
wires at all, or is that okay?

>I had the same problem with an old P200.. It would restart for no
>reason. Fixed the problem by adding a fan to the top of the CPU. 

I really don't think it's a heat problem.  The monitoring software I have
was set to warn me when the CPU temperature reached 60.  I have changed
that to 35 to be extra extra certain.  I brought the warning temperature
for the environment down from 50 to 35 aswell.  So it definitely should
warn me if it's getting hot.  At the moment I'm running the machine with
the side off the case.  The room is fairly cool too.  After crashing I tend
to check the temperature inside the case with my hand, and around the CPU.
It's never hot.

>Take the machine apart _completely_.  Then put it back together again :-)
>
>Chances are something has worked a bit loose.

I think I'll try that today.  Thanks.

>Is it overclocked?  If so, run it at rated speed.

No, I was afraid to mess with that :)

>Another difference
>is that Linux tends to allocate RAM from the top of physical
>memory down, while IIRC Windows allocates bottom up, so you
>can see different behaviour if you've got bad RAM somewhere
>(or a loose DIMM).

I made extra-sure that I don't have a loose DIMM.  How do I tell if I've
got bad RAM?  And are the two DIMM modules supposed to look different?
They're both 128mb, but one has black things on both sides and the other
only has them on one side (sorry for such an untechnical description, but I
don't know the words :)).

>I had this problem at home. The computer kept rebooting itself. I took it
>apart and noticed that the CPU fan wasn't spinning very fast. I replaced
>that and now it's working fine.

The CPU fan is spinning at 3934 RPM.  Is that fast enough?

John asked for some specs.  My processor is a Pentium III, 800MHz.  I have
256mb RAM.  I have an SiS6326 graphics card.

Sorry to keep bothering you all, and thanks for replying so quickly to my
last email.

Thanks,

Carolan