LF help & opinion - comp & HDD resetting

[etcetera]

Hiya

I recently built up a new system for myself. It's runs flawlessly as far as... performance, but I've been having some random reset problems.

I'll kick off with my specifications...

AM2 X2/dual core 3800
BIOSTAR TFORCE4 nForce4 RoHs comp. (full atx one)
SATA WD Raptor - windows & most program installations
SATA WD 250GB - storage
SATA Lite-On DVD-ROM drive
2x512 (dual channel-ed) Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
Sapphire Radeon x850xt, a "ZALMAN VF700-ALCU" installed onto it
-from old- Thermaltake 430W PSU found
-from old- IDE Asus DVD-Burner
-from old- SB Audigy 2 ZS (card+I/O)
-from old- IDE Seagate 80GB - different OS installed, doesn't show in Windows, resets happened before I installed this drive
Server chasis (for rackmountability) w/ 2 120mm filtered intakes and 2 80mm exhausts

Okay,

It doesn't reset when I'm doing CPU, RAM, or even HDD heavy activities. In fact, I've only had it reset once during CPU and RAM heavy-use (gameplay, generally 90-100% CPU). It resets seemingly randomly.. usually in the middle of a basic program like photoshop or an Internet browser.

I run a program that runs in the background that came with the Biostar board, which controls and monitors fans and temperatures. Even after long gameplay, the CPU is rarely over 40º C. The HDD's also remain cool, as the 2 intakes are spanned across them, and they all have empty spaces in between one-another. The installation is fresh and clean, and besides the fan monitor, the Creative volume control, Logitech SetPoint, ATI's CLI.exe or whatever, and Windows Messenger starts with Windows. I don't think it's software related, partly because it happens on my macOS installation on the 80GB as well. As a reminder, it's been reseting before I even put the 80GB IDE drive in.

When it resets, I can usually hear the HDD reset--click--(I think either of the SATA drives), it freezes, and a couple seconds later it blacks out and the computer is restarting.

I suspect the power supply, although it seems like if that was the case, it should crash every time I do anything that would require more power to be drawn, like game or do 3D modeling. But, if I plug in the 80mm fans, which are unplugged atm (everything is already running cool enough), it seems to reset more frequently. The power supply only has 18amps on it's [only] one 12V line, so that's what leads me to believe that.

Please let me know what you think, and any suggestions or comments, feel free to question.

Thanks mucho!

------------------------
woodbury

[Gecko]

Let's see if we can isolate the error:

Go to Start > Control panel > Administrative tools > Event viewer > look in the system section.
You are looking for any red or yellow icons, double click on the icon.
Click inside the 'Description' section then highlight the text and copy and paste it into notepad.
At the bottom of the event window check 'words' and then copy and paste that text also
Then past it all of it into this thread.
If you don't show any errors in the event viewer then:
Go to Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > Startup and Recovery section
Settings button > System Failure section > check the box 'Write an event to the system log'