Computer reboots on its own

[Cassaro]

I have an interesting problem with a computer that belongs to a friend of mine. Ever since he bought this machine new its had a problem with wanting to reboot on its own. They can be in the middle of a program or the computer just sitting on its own and it will just blank the screen and reboot. When it boots it does not go through a scan disk just boots up normally. I was initially thinking that the cpu may be overheating and causing this problem but I checked to make sure the cooling fan was working properly and it was. Darn, as I'm typing this I just thought I should have checked the power management options to see what there set at...well anyways...does anyone have any suggestions or run across this problem before?

Chuck
tek-tips@aspenpkg.com

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[TerryD]

Could be your video card going bad, bad ram, power supply going out.

Do you notice your fan running slower just before the restart?

You can test the video card by bypassing it and using only VGA 640x drivers. This can be done by running msconfig (start>run) and clicking on Advanced. You will see a check box for VGA 640x... drivers. You will have to go back to uncheck it to enable normal drivers and resolution

See if you have a trojan. Download a scanner here and run a scan then post back. Their scanner can apparently detect trojans that other anti-virus programs can't.

http://members.aol.com/simplysup/tremover

Try http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q171/2/27.ASP "]here.[/url]

Also check this...

Tools--internet options--connection tab--settings button. See if "do not allow internet programs to use this connection" is unchecked at the bottom. If it's checked then uncheck it. If it's checked then some program you have like Norton anti-virus perhaps may be connecting to get an automatic update.

 

[Cassaro]

Terry,

Thanks! I'll take a look at those things this weekend

Chuck
tek-tips@aspenpkg.com

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[Kento]

In my experience random reboots are usually caused by a bad power supply. It could also be the nic card. If you have one remove it and see if the problem disappears.

 

[theripper]

I've seen some of the same issues with the AMD 1.2x and greater. The generic fans that come with the CPU's just aren't good enough. You basically have to get the "GT" model of a fan for those CPU's.

The above posts are correct. Usually, you can boil it down to: Power Supply, Fans (including that little one on the video card) - or bad RAM. Also, it's easy to over look, but check where your friend is plugging the PC into - Could be an outlet getting power spikes or power sags. It would do the same thing as you explained.

Good Luck!