Random boot-ups in XP

[Induna]

Has anybody experienced this, your PC rebooting at random for no apparent reason?

If so, what did you do to fix it? Is it more likely a hardware issue, like a dodgy hard drive than a dodgy software issue?

[The Hunter]

This may be of some help.
Random Reboot
Right Click on My Computer
Click Properties
Select the Advanced tab
Click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery
Remove the check from the Automatically Restart checkbox

Next time it encounters a problem, it will give you an error message rather than restarting. Write down the error message, restart, and then look up the error message on google or in Microsoft's database

[Induna]

Nice one, I'll look into that.

[The Hunter]

I hope it helps, and let us know how you make out.

[Psilaxs]

What kind of motherboard do you have? What is your CPU. What is your power supply rated at? What video card do you have, and what driver version?

[RACKnRAIL]

Perhaps you recently installed new hardware? I've seen that happen before.

[The Hunter]

This is something else to check.
Next time it happens write down what time it is. Go to your control panel and open up administrative tools. Go to the event viewer. you will see 3 options. Open up Application Error Records, and look for the time of the reboot. Is there a red X error or Yellow warning sign. If so duble click on it and see what it says. Then go to System Error Records and do the same thing. Then comeback here and post what you found and we'll see what we can do to help you figure it out.

[Induna]

Before I go on it's not my PC, somebody elses. I went to his house last night to have a look at it. It seems to reboot at random, sometimes after 5 mins, another time it could be an hour. First thing I did was event viewer but there was no error report there, next I disconnected the cable modem, still no change. Next I changed the PSU, still happening. I unplugged the DVD burner and a couple of hard drives, still rebooting. Lastly I formatted his primary drive and put XP Pro back on, a clean install. Just when I was installing a few programs it happened again.

At this point I cried out loud, lord have mercy upon my soul, why do you torment me so?! Then I left his house where upon he told me never to darken his abode again.

Actually I said I'd ask around, see what opinions I could get. No new hardware was recently added. It's a bit of a mystery to me. I was think of trying a different h/d for his primary drive. I've also remembed somebody saying to disable write caching on the disk as that causes random rebooting in XP. But I ain't gonna see him till Wednesday.

Specs: 2.6Ghz Athlon XP, Gigabyte motherboard, can't remember the model number, FX5600 graphics card. It was working fine until a couple of weeks ago.

[The Hunter]

Another thing you can try is lowering the hardware acceleration as it may be causing the video card to over heat. I have also had a similar problem caused by a short in the CD rom cable.

[vipp]

After he disables the Automatically Restart, he'll get the BSOD instead, and the stop error listed on that should give some clues as to what's conflicting.

[RACKnRAIL]

If your friend doesn't update windows, it could also be that old Blaster virus.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/blast.asp

[RACKnRAIL]

One other thing, the power supply is another common problem that maybe worth checking into.

[The Hunter]

The power supply has already been changed, and the best thing we can do now is wait and see what message he gets when auto restart is disabled.

[my name]

there is a simple check.
format harddrive reinstall windows. if problem presist its hardware.
if not its software.

[Krell]

Holy Shit !

The Hunter . . . . really takes the cake on this one. I feel like retiring.





.

[The Hunter]

Dont you frigging dare, Im just a newbie at this.

[moneoa]

Has anybody experienced this, your PC rebooting at random for no apparent reason?

If so, what did you do to fix it? Is it more likely a hardware issue, like a dodgy hard drive than a dodgy software issue?
I have had my Xp machine boot up a few hours after I shut it down, not in hibernation and completely off...it was a very freaky thing

[Induna]

It's not the blaster worm because I put the patch on as soon as I installed XP.

Thinking about it it's got to be a hardware problem. The CPU wasn't overheating, it was running at around 52 degrees. It could be the graphics card, or the RAM, or like you said Hunter a dodgy cable.

I thought to myself before I even went to his house that I was going to have mess around with every component on his PC. I thought I'd get away with it but it looks like that's what I'm gonna to have to do. I had a similar problem but my PC, it would just shut down and stay off. I just changed the PSU and it hasn't done it since. Butthat didn't solve this guy's problems.

And about those stop messages, they don't really help you as they're not very specific in identifing the problem.

[The Hunter]

I would run Aida 32 to see what little goodies it finds in there. Right now im thinking a bad stick of ram could be causing the problem.

[vipp]

And about those stop messages, they don't really help you as they're not very specific in identifing the problem.

Sometimes they do help though. My last one was a fwdrvr error, which is firewall driver.

[DefCoN]

I have your answer guy..Download this http://tds.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=download TDS-3 and update all updates needed then do a full system scan and then look for anything that says positive identification then look to the right of pos ident and right click and delete.I guarantee you have a trojan dropper or a backdoor virus..The very same thing happened to me and this has solved the problem and has never happened again..TDS-3 (http://tds.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=download)