Restarting Computer

Yeti

Yeti

VIP Member
I built a computer about 8 months ago and fairly soon after I noticed that once in a while it would randomly restart. After restarting, it displayed a message that windows had recovered from a serious error or something along those lines, and when I clicked on more info it said that it was probably a driver issue. I've been trying to find a pattern in when it restarts but I still can't find any. Generally it happens once every few days, but sometimes it happens more often. I was running a fairly large Fortran program once and it would consistantly restart before it could finish. Thats about the only consistancy I can remember. More recently I noticed that the error message doesn't appear after a restart.

A few other things:
- the computer doesn't power off when restarting
- I have reformatted the hard drive, so it probably isn't a virus

A semi-detailed component list:
- P4 3.4 GHz Northwood
- Windows XP Professional SP2
- Abit IC7-G motherboard
- PowMax Demon 580W PSU
- 2X512 MB PC3200
- Seagate 160 GB HD (System)
- Hitachi 250 GB HD (Storage)
- Sony CD-RW/DVD
- NEC DVD-/+RW
- Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256MB
 
Yeti

Yeti

VIP Member
I'm not sure if that is really the problem. It happened when I had SP1 installed and it still happens now that I have SP2. Now the error message does't appear but the computer does still randomly restart (I'm not sure exactly when this started, it may have been when SP2 was installed).
 
mgoldb2

mgoldb2

VIP Member
It hard to know without more information like the exact error message. I would press F8 at startup, use the arrow keys to select the Disable automatic restart on system failure option, and then press ENTER. This way next time is messes up you have time to see what the stop error message is. write this down then I might be able to find a soloution.
 
Yeti

Yeti

VIP Member
Thats the thing - it doesn't seem to give an error message at all anymore. The screen just goes black and it restarts. I'll try disabling the automatic restart on system failure and see if that helps though.
 
Yeti

Yeti

VIP Member
The heat isn't too bad - about 45C idle, 60C full load. The voltage rails are pretty good. The memory was my guess because I bought cheap memory. I just don't have any way to test it other than switching some RAM from my other computer and waiting to see if it restarts.
 
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