spontaneous reboot problem

Mark N wrote:
> kony wrote:

>> Similarly you can try ruling out other parts subtractively,
>> disconnecting them from the system and seeing if the problem
>> persists. I assume there are no unused motherboard
>> standoffs shorting the back of the case or loose wires or
>> memory, etc... some things are hard to speculate about
>> without having the system in front of us or knowing all
>> details of it's history. You could also pull the board out
>> and try it in a minimal config on a desktop - not on
>> ESD-safe surface as that conducts electricity on the back of
>> the board.

> I already tried another video card, no change. I've checked the memory,
> including running memtest86, no problems there. Given that reboots can
> happen very early in the boot cycle, that doesn't leave much. Power
> supply is fine. I have a sound card and dial-up modem as PCI cards, and
> I guess I could pull those. I haven't pulled the mobo yet, but perhaps
> worth pulling it out just to make sure nothing's under it.
>
> Strange behavior in the last 24 hours. Seemed like it was close to being
> done, rebooting rapidly and then just POSTing with long beeps, then last
> night it booted upo and stayed running. After a couple hours I restarted
> after reconnecting my DSL modem, and it booted fine again. A couple
> hours later I went to bed and left it on, it went into hibernation fine,
> and started up fine this morning, ran fine for about four hours before I
> turned it off. Came home tonight and right back into the same old reboot
> pattern...

So after a bit of that action on Sunday evening I got it to load
Windows, and that was it. Not a single reboot since, and everything
seems to be running fine. So maybe a bit of a short somewhere or the
like, but I never found a definitive problem. I may just be suffering
from a "symptom gap", but I ain't gonna go looking for trouble where
there is none. Not at the moment, anyway...