Unexpected Shutdown-Can't stop automatic restart 2

[melburstein]

I own a Dell Lattitude D810 and am running Microsoft Vista Ultimate. I never used to get Blue Screen errors. But, now when I leave my machine unattended overnight, I frequently find that it has automatically rebooted with a window that says there has been an unexpected error. Clicking on the Find Solutions button just gets rid of that window but doesn't tell me anything.

I'm trying to turn off the automatic reboot so that I will be able to read the Stop Error on the blue screen. But I can't seem to get that to work. I click Start > Control Panel > System and Maintenance > System. Then I click the Advanced System Settings Task and the Settings button under Startup and Recovery. I uncheck the Automatically Restart button under System failure and lastly I click the OK button. But it doesn't stick. When I come back, the Automatically restart button is again with a check mark.

I will be grateful for any ideas posted to this thread. Thank You.

 

[smah]

Is there any helpful information in event viewer? - start, eventvwr.msc

 

[melburstein]

I've not used the event viewer. Once open, where do I look?

 

[linney]

When looking at the Event Viewer, make sure you are an Administrator.

Better troubleshooting capabilities with Windows Vista's Event Viewer

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6108150.html

Use the Help Menu, and the Help and Support program, lots of details are found there..


The Safe Mode (F8) options screen has a option for turning off automatic restarts as a "one off" choice.

When making system wide choices, such as disabling Automatic Restarts via the GUI, make sure you are doing that as an Administrator too.

Make sure that the settings for Virtual Memory (Paging File) are correct.

 

[melburstein]

I loggrd in to the Administrator account and tried again to uncheck the "Automatically restart" button from the Startup and Recovery window. It doesn't stick. It keeps showing up as checked.

Meantime, I'm trying to understand the information in the Event Viewer but haven't found anything helpful yet.

 

[linney]

Auto Reboot On System Crash - Registry location

http://www.theeldergeek.com/auto_reboot_on_system_crash.htm

Have a look at Vista's Startup Repair.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/5c59f8c1-b0d1-4f1a-af55-74f3922f3f351033.mspx#EX