*click* Help?

[spacebug]

My computer at work (Windows desktop running XP) has developed a cute little habit. About four times over the last two or three days, it's spontaneously restarted. No warning, no discenible pattern to when it does this that I can tell (so far.) I've run norton anti-virus, I've defragged my drives, I've run chkdsk and found no problems. I'm not kicking the restart button and I secured the power cord.

Any advice?

Comments

[magicmarmot.livejournal.com]

Could be power-supply overheating issues. You could try cleaning out teh fans of dust and stuff, or a new power supply.

[lio.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[soylentmean.livejournal.com]

Or CPU overheating - I've seen quite a few dead CPU fans cause computers to do the random reboot thing.

Also, try installing Ad-Aware or its ilk to check for spyware - it can often wreak havok upon a poor computer system.

Good luck!

[yaaren.livejournal.com]

doubly agreed.

[fivemanjob.livejournal.com]

get a mac mini
run windows XP on that.

[burnunit.livejournal.com]

Have you felt the case--any weird heat or vibrations? The power supply overheating idea is a good one-- open the case up? have you opened the case while it's running? What's it look like in there? Oh, any internal power cables not quite snug or maybe frayed?

Also, when you said you weren't "kicking the restart" do you mean on the machine itself or on the power strip? Have you tried a different power strip?

Get a mac mini. But run mac os on it. Then your problems are Really solved.

[dangerdhotrod.livejournal.com]

i would also suggest power supply or fan. does it sound louder or quieter? do you have a machine graveyard? it should be pretty easy to replace the power supply with one from any other computer.

[don-rodent.livejournal.com]

Hello! DOOOOOOON ROdeNT h3r3. Right! Cute and cuddly computer support from a rodent who is NOT a ruggie. Not a ruggie! Point the first: it does sound very very much like overheating. Verify that the power supply fan is spinning and blowing air is not overly clogged with dust and small bits of cheese. Also: open up the case and verify that the CPU fan (if there is one) is also running and blowing air around. Okay! DO not twit me! Point the second: bad memory can cause weird behaviour like this. Try re-seating the RAM chips. In fact, point the third is that flaky hardware can cause this sort of behaviour.
My rodenty suggestion is to re-seat the RAM and all the PCI cards (and video card, maybe), blow as much dust out of the case as you can and see if the situation improves.
If that doesn't help then (ilikecheese), if you can, replace the various components in different combinations starting with the RAM (try removing all but one RAM chip for a day and see how it goes; then try another one for another day). This is time-consuming but fairly inexpensive.
If Springboard for the Cuddly Rodents you're rolling in cheese money accidentally drop your computer out of a window and requisition a new one.
I am DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON Rodent!!! Okay.
Goodbye!

[hexagonalcarbon.livejournal.com]

I've seen this problem caused by nearly any failing component (including software).

The order I would use to troubleshoot:

1) Check CPU and PS fans for clogging and motion as mentioned by everyone.

Oh, if you find a dead CPU fan, be careful when replacing it. Modern CPU fans apply huge amounts of pressure to the CPUs, and thus require a lot of force to connect. Be careful to not let things get out of control as it is very possible to crack the CPU this way.

If you find a dead powersupply fan, just replace the whole powersupply.

2) While inside computer, look at motherboard for swollen capacitors. I think you play with circuit boards, but if you can't regnize them, they look like little plastic cylinders, maybe ~.25" dia. and ~.5" tall. They should have flat tops and bottoms with no leaking brown fluid and no doming whatsoever. One would like to look inside the power supply for the same (but larger), but this is often impractical.

3) At this point, things get difficult for an amateur. I would put in a clean harddrive and install a clean copy of windows. This will rule the hardware as either good or bad, and by deduction the software as either maybe good or bad for sure.

A low effort version of this would be to boot the computer in safe mode and see if it solves the problem. If so, the hardware is probably good. If not, you know nothing new.

4) Don Rodent has a reasonable suggestion in theory (reseating everything), but in practice it may or may not be a good idea for your situation. When one does this, there is a very real possibility of creating a loose connection somewhere (say memory that isn't snapped in right), which looks to an employer as if you just made the situation worse. Another possiblity is bending pins, breaking stuff, causing ESD damage, or fires due to incorrect connection. (in descending order of likelihood.) You know better than I if this is a good risk or not.

5) While I don't really recommend it, if you want to buy new parts to swap in, start with a new powersupply. They're usually about $25 for a cheap, standard ATX style. If doing so, it might be a good idea to bring the powersupply with you when you buy a new one to make sure you get the right replacement. That is if you can remember what plugs where.

[(Anonymous)]

I seem to remember Windows having some option which causes automatic rebooting if there is a problem. You can turn this off and then you'll get a blue-screen-of-death which, in some cases, gives you a hint of what might be wrong.

(After googling)

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/russel_02may13.mspx

Another page mentioned this:

---begin text---
Disabling the “restart on system failure” feature may permit the exact cause to be isolated: Right-click on My Computer, click Properties, click the Advanced tab. Under “Startup & Recovery,” click Settings. Under “System Failure,” uncheck the box in front of “Automatically restart.”
---end text---