jill said:
My PC reboots itslf. It happens when I click on an icon,go to a web
site, exit a website, click on something within a web site, do almost
anything, or do nothing. It may reboot itself up to six time per day
or go several days without rebooting.
.
The PC is on-demand scanned daily for all malware, and real time
scanning (protection) is active at all times. Installed software is
scanned regularly for vulnerabilities by Secunia PSI, and patched when
needed.
.
Any ideas? What is the cause of this problem and what is its remedy?
Is there any freeware availble to solve the problem or at least
minimize it?
.
If you have any ideas, please let me know. Not only do I need help but
I like to learn.
.
Jill
jill_kolori @ yahoo.com
As others have mentioned
1) Turn off automatic restarts, so the BSOD stays on the screen.
If the computer still reboots, with no notification of any kind,
and no message in Event Viewer, then it could be hardware related.
If you get an actual blue screen with error numbers, carefully
record all the error numbers, for later lookup on the Web.
2) Boot with an alternate OS, and see if the symptoms can be reproduced.
For example, a Ubuntu CD or a Knoppix CD, are bootable CDs that
need no hard drive to operate. They don't copy any files to the
hard drive. You need sufficient RAM for a LiveCD to be able to run
like that (I've run one in a virtual machine with 512MB, so that
should be enough). RAM is used to store temporary files. There is a
web browser, DHCP, and the like, so you should be able to use the
eb browser as soon as booting has finished. If the system reboots
with this alternate OS running, then it could be a hardware problem.
3) Take the side cover off the computer, and do a visual inspection.
Look for bulging caps for example. Also, listen carefully to the
computer when it first starts. When I had leaking and bulging caps
inside my power supply, the first evidence of that was a muffled
"arcing" sound. This is what I found inside the power supply, after
I replaced it and had a look inside the power supply. Opening a
supply voids any warranty. Don't touch anything inside, if you do
something like this (by telling you this, I don't get complaints
later about electrical shocks and the like).
(Four leaking brown stuff, one with an obvious bulged top)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/PSU_Caps.jpg
The same kind of leakage can happen to capacitors around the processor
socket. Some brand name computer models, have had a lot of problems
like this. For more info on "capacitor plague", try this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
4) For a stress testing program, try Prime95. What you're looking for
here, is whether the computer reboots, as soon as the Prime95 test
starts. Open Task Manager first so you can watch CPU activity level,
run Prime95, use the defaults for a first test run, then start it.
Watch Task Manager, and verify the CPU goes to 100% utilization.
Then see if the computer restarts due to the added power consumption.
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/
http://mersenneforum.org/gimps/p95v259.zip
When prompted, answer you're "just stress testing", as you don't
want to join mersenne.org for this simple test. If you want to
contribute to their search for prime numbers later, that is fine
too.
HTH,
Paul
