new spontaneous sudden rebooting??

[chconnor]

Hi! As of today, my computer seems to be randomly rebooting... hasn't done this before that I recall, but it's an old mobo... Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H, with i7-4770K. GeForce GTX 1060 6GB with nvidia drivers. Kubuntu 24.10.

I'm watching a video or working or whatever, and suddenly all screens go black, and computer restarts. No hang, no warning, no stuttering, nothing strange seems to be happening, just sudden and instant drop to black.

Journal doesn't show anything strange at all.

Is there a way this could be caused by a video driver bug? Seems like I've seen that kind of thing before, and there was an update yesterday, IIRC.

Otherwise where would I look for an explanation -- power supply?

I think I have the latest BIOS (which was many years ago at this point).

Thanks for any ideas on how to troubleshoot!

[chconnor]

Rolled back the nvidia driver just in case... will report back...

[chconnor]

No luck, still rebooting. I'll try reseating everything connecting to the mobo...

Edit: Happening in windows as well so it seems like a low-level hardware thing... haven't re-seated yet but doing it now....

Edit2: reseated everything; also swapped slots with RAM sticks. I note that it doesn't happen under load (or with any other apparent pattern) -- just randomly strikes. Will report back...

Edit3: argh, still happening... going to go down to a single RAM stick at a time...

Edit4: argh, RAM shuffling one at a time made no difference... trying a different power supply now...

[skyfishgoo]

sounds thermal related, might bet time to re-paste

[Qqmike]

Overheating can cause this. It may be the most likely reason. (Is the interior of your PC full of dust? Are the fans dusty? are they spinning OK? CPU fan glued down to the CPU?).
Can also be memory (you might try Memtest86 on the RAM).
It can be the power supply. Is yours very old? Are all the wire connectors tight, nothing loose? Is the PS fan clean, no dust build-up?
I'm not a graphics card user, but I think it's a good idea to check if your drivers are up to date.

[chconnor]

Thanks all -- interior is clean (a couple months ago did a deep clean), airflow is good. CPU temps have been low... this AM it is rebooting while the temps are around 90-100F (38C). It does this while idle, in other words.

Ran a (brief, like 30m) memtest after reseating and moving RAM around and no issues reported there; single RAM sticks in different slots didn't help.

I replaced the power supply last night but it's still happening.

Reseated all connectors; fans are clear, no (well, minimal) dust.

Nvidia drivers are up to date (and I rolled back to try that as well.)

Do you think it's still worth trying new thermal paste?

I realized that the only connectors I didn't re-seat were the SATA drive connectors; will correct that oversight now and see what happens.

[chconnor]

Reseated (after contact cleaner) the CPU, new thermal paste, and re-seated all SATA... everything is now re-seated. Will see how this goes... if it still happens, I guess next thing is to remove the video card and see if that changes anything. Any other things to try?

[chconnor]

Argh, still happening. Video card is now pulled. I'm running out of ideas quick, here...

Edit: I will note that the frequency has changed after the re-seating stuff. It used to happen every 10-60 minutes. After re-seat, it worked fine all day yesterday, but when I left it overnight it rebooted like 5 times in a row at like 5:30AM, and has been fine since. Pretty random, and not obviously related to load or usage.

[Qqmike]

But the video card could be the issue, or a glitch in the program/update to that card.

[Qqmike]

... also, you changed out the power supply, so you checked the power cord going from the PS to the electrical outlet.
If using a plug bar, the plug bar is good? not flickering or resetting or something?

Want to make sure it is not a shaky power supply issue ...
like even inside the PC case, where there are two power connectors, a big one and the smaller 4-/6-pin CPU plug.
Everything tight and snug?

[chconnor]

But the video card could be the issue, or a glitch in the program/update to that card.

Hmmm not sure i follow - that's why i pulled it out, to process-of-elimination try to see if it would fix the issue?

At any rate, didn't help... Still rebooted. I unplugged a drive that has been having some minor issues and now the system isn't booting... It gets to grub, starts to boot, then hangs with nothing on the screen. Mobo LED code is for "initializing IDE drives" but i don't have any... I'm starting to wonder if the mobo has flaked out for real.

Thank you for the power bar idea - i will check that out. The computer is plugged into a ups before the power strip though, but that's another thing i can confirm isn't going weird.

[chconnor]

(and yeah all connectors in the pc are snug and have been checked and reseated, etc)

[Qqmike]

You removed the video card, which is what I intended to say.

I'm out of ideas! Unless this is some sort of crack in a circuit board that changes with temperature. I've actually had that happen (cracked mobo circuit).

[chconnor]

Appreciate the effort!

I can't even get it to boot now. I pulled the mobo, cleaned every square inch front and back with 99% IPA, contact cleaner and re-seated every connector again, reset bios, replaced cmos battery, now booting with one ram stick and one drive connected, no video card... It gets to grub and gets started but hangs on boot. Voltages on a couple test points seem nominal. (Edit: also plugged into the wall bypassing power strip and ups.) The last two things I'm going to try are re-flashing the bios and booting kubuntu off a usb stick. If that doesn't work i think I'll throw in the towel.

[Qqmike]

This is sort of relevant, at least with respect to the booting (not so much the spontaneous re-booting), and maybe you know of it,
Boot-Repair
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

It sure seems like you have very carefully exhausted a good troubleshooting list on the re-booting issue.