*click* Help?

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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

[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.