My computer reboots itself....and I'm not smart enough to figure out why!

[Evoman]

Okay, I'm smart enough to put the darn thing together, and get it working like a dream. Somewhat.

I've had it for about 4 months now. For the past 2 months, my computer has rebooted itself without any error messages. No locks ups, nothing. Just shuts off and starts up again. Not very often...actually, it's only happened about 3 times total in the last 2 months, but still....

So I figured it was either a power problem, or overheating. I opened the comp up....it's not really overly dusty, and although I don't have a temp gauge, the circulation is good and it doesn't feel very hot. Plus, it reboots right after without shutting itself off again. And the applications I'm running are not very CPU or video intensive when the thing has rebooted itself. I've also tried running intensive games (Prey, Fear) right after it reboots to see if I can get it to shut itself off again. It doesn't

So I'm figuring it might be a power thing. Although, again, I'm not doing anything super power intensive when the thing boots up. The reason I'm suspicious it might be power related, is because I have had some problems with the comp rebooting itself when I use the front USB ports (the back ones have never given me problems).

So what's the deal? I've got an AMD Athlon 64 3000+, A8V Deluxe, 1 gig ram (dual mode 512), 500 gb Western Dig. hard drive, Radeon 9800 pro with what I think is a Thermaltake 430W PSU (though I'm not positive, I believe that's what it said).

Any ideas or suggestions? Like I said, it doesn't happen very often at all, so I'm not going to be able to tell you right away if your suggestions worked. I just want an idea of what's going on. Could it just be a software error? It's not like I'm getting Blue Screens of death or locking up (I am running Win XP PRo though).

[charlie]

1. First thing I'd do

is disable automatic rebooting. XP is set to reboot in the event of an unrecoverable error by default, which is dumb. You'll never get to see an error message that could give you a clue if you let XP do its thing.

Right-click My Computer --> Properties, select the Advanced tab. Click the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery field. In the Systems Failure field, untick the Automatically Restart box. Click the OKs on your way out.

[Evoman]

2. Fuck, I hadn't even noticed that was on!

The stupid thing is, when I was building it, I knew that I was supposed to turn that option off. I thought I had, that's why I wasn't sure why I wasn't getting some sort of error message.

Thanks charlie. You rock.

[charlie]

3. I always forget to undo it too

after a reinstall. It's reeeeally annoying when I discover it's on, because it's way more unnerving to me when the box just dies and comes back to life, instead of kicking up a BSOD.

Something else I forgot -- you might want to reboot after resetting the restart option. I'm not sure if it takes effect immediately, but if it doesn't you'll go through another death/resurrection before finally getting an error message.

In the meanwhile, you can peruse the error logs. Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Event Viewer. If you remember the date and time of the last failure, it ought to be recorded in there.