System Restarting when in use w/o notice

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Reed
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D

David Reed

Does anyone have any idea why my bosses' Dell GX400 system, running Windows
2000 SP4, on an AD network, might suddenly, without warning, shut down and
restart?

It's driving him crazy, and he's driving me crazy.

One thought I had might be a Group Policy I have doing updates from our SUS
server, which is supposed to shut down and reboot if the user is logged off,
so it can do the updates when it's done. But that GP, I've checked, doesn't
do it for anyone else, only him.

Is it possible that it got the GP when I set it up the first time, and set
it up wrong, and then fixed it, that those "wrong" settings are still in
there, in his computer? Is there a way for me to remove/reverse that policy
just on his PC, or on the OU his PC is in? (there are only two PCs in that
OU).

Any and all ideas welcome...before the man drives me crazy.

Thanks,

David
 
Check your event log for entries with EventLog source (with red icon). It
will indicate the bugcheck code that caused your computer to reboot. Use
that bugcheck code to further investigate the problem.

--
Regards

Matjaz Ladava, MCSE, MCSA, MCT, MVP
Microsoft MVP - Active Directory
(e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)
http://ladava.com
 
Hi There,

It was an Error 1000.

Anyone else have any ideas on this?

Regards,

David
 
Hello David,

Here are somethings to consider in regards to the issue you are having.

1. A computer running Windows 2000 may restart without wanring if it
Bugchecks (a.k.a. Blue Screens or Stops ) you can change this behaviour by
changing the value data in the AutoReboot value to 0 (zero), instead of 1,
in the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl

Now the computer should show a STOP error of some sort if this is what is
occurring.

Stop errors occurr for numerous different reasons. Is there anything
specific the user is doing when the reboot occurs? Is the error occurring at
night only or at very specific times of the day? If so is there any
automated processes that run and that may be triggering the Stop? If the
reboot is random perhaps there is a memory leak of some sort.

If there is no Stop error and the computer is in fact spontaneously
rebooting you should examine the hardware on this system. Keep in mind that
when you actually get a Stop error the server is working as it should (sort
of). The Operating System is Intentionally stopping itself because a problem
of some sort has been detected that may result in corrupt or lost data.
There may be severe hardware issues (power related?) that cannot be foreseen
by the Operating System and therefore the Stop does not have a chance to
occur.

Search the KB for the parameters of the Stop error (e.g. 0x0000000a...) or
call in to Microsoft and have someone read a full memory dump.

Check the hardware if no Stop occurs. For example perhaps this is heat
related and there may be an option in the BIOS to reboot if the processor
overheats or something.

174630 Windows Restarts Continuously with Blue Screen
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=174630

Buz Brodin
MCSE NT4 / Win2K
Microsoft Enterprise Domain Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

Please do not send e-mail directly to this alias. This alias is for
newsgroup purposes only.
 
Hi Buzz,

That sounds good, thank-you for your very detailed and very much appreciated
response.

I will make that change to the registry (and back up, of course), and wait a
bit, see what happens.

Thanks again, I'll let you know if I find anything!

David
 
David Reed said:
Does anyone have any idea why my bosses' Dell GX400 system, running Windows
2000 SP4, on an AD network, might suddenly, without warning, shut down and
restart?

It's driving him crazy, and he's driving me crazy.

One thought I had might be a Group Policy I have doing updates from our SUS
server, which is supposed to shut down and reboot if the user is logged off,
so it can do the updates when it's done. But that GP, I've checked, doesn't
do it for anyone else, only him.

Is it possible that it got the GP when I set it up the first time, and set
it up wrong, and then fixed it, that those "wrong" settings are still in
there, in his computer? Is there a way for me to remove/reverse that policy
just on his PC, or on the OU his PC is in? (there are only two PCs in that
OU).

Any and all ideas welcome...before the man drives me crazy.

Thanks,

David

--
David Reed
Nework Administrator
(e-mail address removed)

*****************************
Click to expand...
just a thought, how long has it been since the inside of the box was
cleaned? check heat problems
 
It's likely that the machine is encountering a blue screen and is configured
to automatically reboot.

Go to control panel, system, advanced, startup and recovery, and uncheck the
box to auto reboot. That way you'll be able to tell if it's a blue screen.

-Matt
 
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