Computer restarts without warning

Sylpher · Sat 28/08/2004 18:26:14

I bring this to you fine people because I have tried everything I know and it is still happening.

As the title suggests my computer will suddenly shut off and restart without any warning at all. It is never under the same circumstance and as far as I have been following (At least 6 months) has no pattern at all. No same program or same sequence of events that I have been able to notice causes it.

I found a way to make XP generate an error rather then just seize and shut off but I am still left just hitting reset so it isn't exactly that much of help. Here is the real difficult part..

Sometimes it happends 3 or 4 times a day sometimes it doesn't happen for a few weeks.. So removing programs, drivers and hardware until the problem stops has proven very difficult because it can go a month without doing it and I am never sure if it is solved or not.

This happend very regularly when I had my Live Drive IR (A device that sits in a 5 1/4 slot and has some audio options made by sound blaster). When I upgraded to XP this sucker has been giving me hell. I unhooked it and it stopped for about a year.

About half a year ago I slowly start upgrading my computer.. Video card, Psu, Fans, cables... ect.. And that is around the time it started again.

For a break down of my system:

Windows XP No service packs
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 Ghz
1 Gig of Ram
Ati 9600 Xt
Asus Mother Board
Creative Sound Blaster Platinum 5.1
HP Cd Burner 5200

Couple fans.. rounded cables.. A PCI fan.. Simple Network Card

I still have the Drive IR unhooked and it kills me I wish I could use it.

If anyone knows anything I beg of you.. This has to stop it is driving me fugging crazy.

dasjoe · Sat 28/08/2004 18:32:55

http://www.memtest86.com/

download a iso, burn it. then boot from it, leave your pc running for atleast one full pass, two or three are even better.
it checks your ram, sounds for me like it's not working. or your powersource could be the problem. that are the most common reasons.

LGM · Sat 28/08/2004 18:35:35

Sounds to me like it's your PSU. This happened to my brother aswell. Your not getting enough power, it sounds like.

If that's not the case, then what Dasjoe reccomends might solve it.

InCreator · Sat 28/08/2004 18:39:35

This sounds more like mechanical problem.

* check the wall outlet where your computer is plugged in. maybe it's broken and has bad connection? This happened to me once: the plastic parts inside outlet were broken and even typical lamp blinked randomly few times per hour. sometimes, when plugging cord out, sparkles flew around!

* what else is plugged into outlet? Big energy-consuming devices such as refridgerators, TVs, electric heaters and so on - may cause your problem aswell.

* or maybe it's the power itsself coming from stations what is overloaded? try to notify the time when self-reboot does happen: does it happen during nighttime too?

* look behind your computer: are the cables messed up?

* And check if your computer case power (measured in Watts) is enough for the motherboard: 300W is standard nowadays and should cause no problems.

Sylpher · Sat 28/08/2004 18:44:33

dasjoe, Thanks, trying it after this.

LGM I thought so too.. So i went out and bought a 550 watt supply and no beans.

InCreator, Interesting but I don't think so. Nothing else is plugged in the outlet and this has happend over the course of three moves so.. three outlets..

Andail · Sat 28/08/2004 18:58:43

I once had problems with my starting/shutting down procedures after I dropped a screw on the motherboard and caused a little short-curcuit. I saw a tiny spark shoot out from the curcuits, and feared that I had broken the whole darn machine, but it worked most of the times. Every now and then it didn't shut down properly, or it went to some sort of energy saving mode without me asking for it.

So yeah, it's most likely not a software issue, rather an electrical problem. If you're pretty experienced with fine electronics, check the curcuitboard for glitches in the soldering.

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires · Sat 28/08/2004 19:07:03

Just for sake of completeness, you're sure it ain't a virus, right? I once had a similar problem, which turned out to be a virus. But note that when I say "similar", I mean that a message popped up, politely informing me that the PC would be rebooted in 50 seconds, so it's probably not THAT similar. Still, for sake of completeness, are you?

Rincewind · Sat 28/08/2004 19:16:31

Yeah, I have XP and have the exact same problem - It just shuts down and restarts without warning, on an irregular basis... I have no solution, though...Ã,Â

Sylpher · Sat 28/08/2004 19:47:00

memtest found 781 errors.. Wee. I suppose it is time to go Ram shopping.

InCreator · Sat 28/08/2004 20:13:00

Also try to shut down ATX features:
Fiddle around with BIOS and try to disable soft-pwr-off button and anything else that makes shutting down the computer to be windows compatible: if it fixes anything - problem is in software.

Ghormak · Sat 28/08/2004 20:39:46

Increator's post reminded me...
My computer used to shut itself down seemingly randomly when I had enabled automatic shutdown for when the cpu temperature reaches above 80 degrees C. Now I've run cpu temperature checkers and my CPU never goes above 50, so it definitely didn't get too hot, but somehow my bios decided it knew better than me. I turned the feature off and presto, no more problems.

So just in case, turn off all auto-shutdown features.

Pessi · Sat 28/08/2004 21:45:21

I had the same problem. To the point that my computer would boot during the start-up. For some reason the same thing was on my brother's computer. Moving the RAM things around solved the problem. Or didn't, but after that it worked. Computers are so illogical.

Bernie · Sat 28/08/2004 22:17:23

Oi, just wanted to mention that the shutdown window with the timer can be canceled by typing 'shutdown -a' into the execute bar. This only lasts until you restart your computer, but it's still useful, especially when you're working on something.

dasjoe · Sun 29/08/2004 01:20:24

well, the *best* result memtest gave me was about 500.000 errors on the first 10 megabytes of ram.
i've had one gig ram.. it was completely corrupt. and i couldn't return it, bught it bulk.
then i ordered corsair ram with lifetime warranty on any error

auhsor · Sun 29/08/2004 02:57:15

Well this happens to my brothers computer. It just keeps restarting itself. We worked it out that it started happening when we put in his new 200GB harddrive. It's an old computer, so we figured that it was causing it to overheat. If we put a blow fan thingy onto it, it doesn't restart anymore.

I never thought about the ram being dodgy. Maybe it has something to do with that.

R4L · Sun 29/08/2004 03:04:32

I think you might have the LoveSan virus. The LoveSan virus makes it so your computer will restart whenever it wants to. I had it and sometimes my computer would restart without warning and the restart would happen from like 3hours on the computer to 1 sec.

dasjoe · Sun 29/08/2004 03:11:07

Quote from: Sylpher on Sat 28/08/2004 19:47:00
memtest found 781 errors.. Wee. I suppose it is time to go Ram shopping.

Quote from: auhsor on Sun 29/08/2004 02:57:15
It's an old computer, so we figured that it was causing it to overheat. If we put a blow fan thingy onto it, it doesn't restart anymore.

doesn't really look like a virus. i don't know of a virus which destroys your ram or causes your system to overheat. 8)

Barbarian · Sun 29/08/2004 03:43:07

Could be any number of things, as already suggested.
Another obvious thing to try is to open up your computer and give it a good cleaning, especially around the fan and vent areas. If too much dust/dirt is built up, it could be a cause of the computer overheating, and when this happens a computer can shut down without warning.

Also, consider unplugging extra devices you are not using/needing at the time of using your computer (Printers, scanners, various USB devices, etc..) , as these may be causing un-nessecary power-strain/drain on your computer's main power supply and adding to an overheating or too high of a power-strain/drain problem.

Of course scanning your system for SpyWare and Viruses is always a good idea ( A good free utility for scanning for and removing most known SpyWare is Ad-Aware over at www.lavasoft.de , and a good free anti-virus program is AVG Anti-Virus you can find over at www.grisoft.com - look for the free edition on thier downloads page).

Clean up your registry (always wise to make a System Restore point and/or backup registry first before doing such). A good free program for this (mentioned elsewhere in another post methinks) is RegScrubXP, you can find a free download over at:
www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2048

Clean up junk files on your computer:
Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup.

afterwards, it might be good to do a disk-defrag as a well (shut down all applications/programs before running a disk defrag or do it from safe-mode for best results):
Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter.

Ã,Â Well, those are just a few suggestions that may help.
Good luck.

evenwolf · Sun 29/08/2004 19:34:39

Has you computer been sexually active in the past 6 months?

Trapezoid · Mon 30/08/2004 09:48:30

Hmm... My computer has the exact same pr