Computer keeps rebooting on its own !!

[Murpheeee]

Title says it all....no warning, just whenever it feels like it. I know this is a power issue, but not sure what to do about it.

It could either be the supply from the socket (old wiring in house)...in which case I guess a UPS would be the answer.

Or it could be a dodgy power supply - Answer - new power supply.

I dont want to try one or the other without being sure that is the problem, because I don't want to be stuck with an extra power supply and still need to buy a UPS...and vice versa.

Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[Hanpan]

This is a though one. Do you have someone who could loan you a power supply ???

 

[Shooters]

My friend's computer did this also. It seems it would reboot on its own only when he was using it in his dorm but never at home. If you don't want to buy a new power supply before you know if that's the problem then you could always take it to a friend's place and run it there for a while and see if it does the same thing.

 

[mmnatas]

If you have win2k and the system experiences certain hardware failures, instead of just sitting there locked up, it will reboot.

 

[urbantechie]

Check CPU fan, see if it is all the way in contact with your CPU. Check to see if you video card is runnin hot. Is your PS good enough? How long has it been since a fresh OS install? Your RAM might be dying. Most likely a HW problem with maybe a bunch of reasons.

 

[Murpheeee]

It happens a lot when I am doing either a scandisk or a virus scan
The OS (win2k) has only been installed for a month

 

[Bignate603]

crashes on scandisk? hmm, i guess the drive may be sucking more power when it's scanning so that may point at the power supply or you may have a bad contact to the drive. Check your cables.

 

[wj]

My computer was doing that now and then, found that one of my memory chips were bad. I had four 128mb chips pull them out one at a time till I found the one giving the trouble. Install it by it self computer would reboot or not boot at all. Put it in my other pc did the same. Check your memory.




wj

 

[Murpheeee]

Also just rebooted while I moved it.
Gently tipped it over on it's side while running and off it went

 

[Zero]

You must have a SoundBlaster Live! card in your machine.

Zero

 

[Bignate603]

loose cable or bad connection. check them all.

 

[imhotepmp]

As has been mentioned, Win2k automatically reboots on certain hw failures. To change this go to
My computer->system properties->Advanced->Startup and recovery and uncheck 'automatically reboot'

if an error now occurs the bsod should pop up, instead of rebooting automatically. this error may help figure out what the problem is.

if it is the power supply, it should still reboot....if not youll get s bsod

hope this helps

 

[emjem]

If it shuts down when you move it almost has to be something shorting out. Like maybe a loose screw under the mobo. Or a loose wire or component.

Maybe when you're running scandisk the hdd is causing enough vibration to cause the short to trigger?

 

[MadRat]

Could be a simple loosely fitting AGP or PCI slot.

 

[polar]

i had the exact same problem a while ago, i knew it was either P/S or RAM.
after all kinds of checking, mem-test 95 reported a bad block on the memory stick, after replacing the ram, my pc is back to normal.
so i suggest you to do the same.

 

[Murpheeee]

Well it seems I have found the problem.
It started rebooting every time I ejected a CD from the drive, so I figured it was movement related. Opened my case, switched on and tapped things....

Whenever I touched the CPU (PIII 500) it rebooted.

So I took it out and reseated it in its slot.....so far no more reboots...touch wood.

Thanks guys for your help.

 

[imhotepmp]

dont think i helped...but glad you got it working




imhotep(MP)