new spontaneous sudden rebooting??

[chconnor]

Thanks! I'm not sure what to make of everything. I could write ten paragraphs on all the weird stuff happening. E.g. i boot into rescue mode and a terminal window seems to be corrupting the keystrokes coming from the keyboard - keystrokes not being displayed even though they are typed, keystrokes being displayed on screen but not actually registering in the console (e.g. shows "top", i hit enter, it says "op" not recognized as a command, etc.) Glitchy screen updates with the console cursor jumping to random places. Can't boot to the desktop. Strange messages while trying to boot, inconsistent each time.

So i thought "my mobo is gone for sure" but when i boot from a kubuntu usb ... surprise surprise it seems to work ok. Drives have no errors, everything seems fine.

So i don't know what to make of that. If grub or the root partition got corrupted from all the random rebooting i can't imagine it would cause the weird issues i see. But booting from usb is ok??

I just rebooted again and this time it got to the desktop (first time in a long time! Nothing changed, no explanation why it worked this time) but the background image has reverted to default and Wayland is taking 85% of the cpu for no apparent reason.

I guess I'll try flashing the bios for the hell of it but i can't imagine it's going to change anything.

[Qqmike]

I don't know.
If there were something corrupted in the OS files on your (main) disk, then what? Well, a clean re-install (from a flash drive)? This is 24.10, as you said in the OP.
I don't know exactly about all the files, but could it be a corrupted Desktop somehow?
Your strange keyboard suggests a USB issue? or could that also be a corrupted file issue?
But then K24.10 does run in RAM live, as you just reported.

Wish someone else would chime in. But they probably already saw how systematically you have done hardware troubleshooting.

Added:
Certainly, it would seem, that a faulty something-or-other in the motherboard could cause unpredictable things to happen.
But diagnosing that is another challenging matter.

[chconnor]

Some updates: the reversion of the desktop background was just because I wasn't mounting the drive that had that image; my bad. And I think the wayland-taking-CPU thing might just be some bug with the intel integrated graphics.

Now that it's booting again (for unknown reasons) I put the video card and ram back in, have minimal stuff attached via USB, and am mounting just a few of the SATA drives. At least I seem to have a usable system, at least temporarily. If it reboots again or similar I'll throw in the towel -- I just can't think of anything else to try. I've cleaned/reconnected everything multiple times, and currently have the bare minimum amount of stuff connected; if I can't make that work it's time for a new mobo. There is some chance that I'll figure out that it still works if I don't plug anything into a certain USB hub or SATA port or something like that, but even if that's the case I'd probably not want to continue with a mobo that has that kind of issue for fear of future problems.

Your strange keyboard suggests a USB issue?

I do think there is something wrong with USB; a couple months ago windows started complaining about one of the hubs, so I disabled it (wasn't one that I was using, apparently, because everything still functioned.) But yeah given the weirdness I've been seeing I wouldn't be surprised if something in the USB chain was awry and causing all the problems, or maybe that's just symptomatic of whatever is actually wrong. As you say, hard to really diagnose without an EE degree. :-)

[Qqmike]

Sounds like a plan.
The only other non-hardware, easiest thing to do (though not trivial) is to reinstall the OS.
But I agree for now: don't rock the boat.
Good luck. Keep us posted.

[oshunluvr]

Last time I saw this behavior it was the PSU. When the room got hot it shut off. When the room was cool, it worked fine. It took a while for me to figure out the cause.

[chconnor]

I had minimal stuff plugged in and for a while it seemed stable... I thought maybe it was a particular USB port or something, but nope, eventually rebooted. So I have begun research for a new system. And, naturally, as soon as I get serious about buying a new mobo everything has been stable since for no apparent reason. :-) Several days now with no reboot, even though it did reboot in this configuration before. Hard to trust it at this point. The reboot frequency has gradually declined (from like every 20-45m to once a day, or a flurry in a row once a day, to now running several days without rebooting) so maybe whatever circuit trace is cracked has corroded in a conductive fashion for the time being. :-)

[Qqmike]

so maybe whatever circuit trace is cracked has corroded in a conductive fashion for the time being.

Yes, exactly what I am thinking, along those lines.
Assuming it's not the PS, as oshunluvr pointed out, in his experience.
And, it could be the PS, doing what you say in your quote about circuits. It could be anything in the PS that could cause a disruption of the power.
But I think you said you completely changed out the PS.
I read where one guy with the problem diagnosed it by shaking the PC case in different directions! Thinking that if something is simply loose, that would trigger it! LOL

[chconnor]

Yeah PS was changed... I think I pretty conclusively ruled out connectors and peripherals... seems like all that's left is board-level problems. The geek in me hates to leave mysteries like this unsolved, but without a degree in EE it's pretty hard to get to the bottom of it.

Thanks everyone for helping in the attempt!

[Qqmike]

Keep us posted.

[chconnor]

I will but I'm on the "new mobo" train at this point, so there may not be any more interesting updates. Besides me getting a computer that is like 10 or 15 times faster than my current one. :-)

[oshunluvr]

Nothing like being "forced" to upgrade!

[skyfishgoo]

just went thru that... if your m/b refused to boot after being asleep overnight try using VESA certified DisplayPort cables to your monitors before you RMA the thing so many times they end up sending you a used m/b.

[chconnor]

Thanks -- the mobo is 13 years old so there will be no RMA. :-)

[skyfishgoo]

i meant for the new pc... on my 2nd rma for this issue and i'm now learning it might be the cables back feeding power to the PSU causing it to "protect" my new m/b.

[chconnor]

Ah, gotcha, and thanks for the tip!