Sudden restart

[alintatoc]

My computer is quite often having problems with "sudden restart". Now it happened again and after restarting I get also the classic windows toolbar, not the xp one.
Any idea why?

[nic2k4]

Some malware maybe? Go to antivirus.com and scan your PC to be sure.

[pepegot1]

Time for an image backup, if you were wise enough to have one.

[alintatoc]

where do you think is coming from?

[greymalkin]

try going to safe mode..if you can get there fine then either an update got pushed to your computer that is making it bomb out at startup or some virus/malware is causing the behavior.

If you can get to safe mode try scanning with malwarebytes anti-malware. Also you can go to the sytem startup/shutdown options and uncheck the option to automatically restart when there is a system crash. This way you would at least get a blue screen telling you what failed.

I just installed a server at my sisters office and I went by after hours on day 2 and turned it on and it started rebooting at the windows logon screen..it just went into an infinite reboot loop. It turns out it had pushed some update on itself that day that hosed it. I spent all night getting it stable again then turned off all the automatic updates, etc. . From now on I'm not doing anything to that computer without first making a backup image.

[SingSing]

You got a broken power supply or mother board or a flaky power switch.

[minidv2dvd]

as the guys imply it could be just about anything. you need to narrow it down. start with the hardware. do a memory stress test. do a temperature test on the cpu. video card test. when you have eliminated the hardware move on to the software. virus, trojan, malware.

any idea when it started? new/updated software, hardware change, did you move the computer(could be a loose board, or wire, or fan). did you build it or was it purchased. just start testing everything.

[AlanHK]

Either hardware or software.

To check if software, make a bootable CD, eg Knoppix, and play with that for a while. If it's okay, blame Windows and fix or reinstall.

If it crashes, than it's hardware.

Either
1) Power supply (hard to check, but cheap to replace).
2) Hard disk going bad -- many utilities to check that, starting with built-in scandisk.
3) RAM going bad (this happened to me last week, same symptoms). Get
Memtest86 Or if you have more than one stick of RAM, pull one and see what happens.
4) Overheating -- fan problem. Should be a readout eg in BIOS, to tell you temps of your chips.
5) Some other glitch, probably means bad mobo.

[INFRATOM]

check the events, see what was the last error before reboot. Right click my computer> manage> event viewer>application. Look for red items.

[alintatoc]

Could you guys recommend some good software for doing all these things...

I've managed to check the temp

[INFRATOM]

It is easier and faster to trouble shoot with method of elimination which most people do. I suggest take your hard disc out put another spare and install OS, windows or whatever. You get sometime to activate so you can test see if there is a hardware problem at the same time you have done half of the job of reinstalling if there is a virus or driver conflict that is not easy to remove. You can also boot from DVD or CD drive into Ubuntu and try it if there is a PSU, RAM or other hardware problem it will show. If you have overclocked specially memory put it back to standard level. Overclocking memory could make the computer unstable.

[Nelson37]

No you haven't "checked the temperature". You got ONE readout from ONE program, with no idea of it's accuracy, and under no load, at that. Check that against at least one other prog and the BIOS reading, as well.

Now, if you want some answers, you just HAVE GOT to provide some useful information.

Define "quite often". Once a week, once every hour for 8 hours straight, twice a day for two weeks while the PC was running 4 to 8 hours at a time, every time the dog trips over the power cord, WHAT? An error that hapenns only once every two or three days is a lot more difficult to troubleshoot than one that happens every half-hour or so.

Can you dependably re-produce the error by anything you do? Describe what the PC is typically doing when it restarts. Has it ever done this while sitting with no progs open? Look for similarities in the task load or operations when the problem occurs.

Define "sudden restart". Do you mean instantly drops to a black screen and performs a power-off reboot? Do you mean closes all apps, drops to the Windows desktop, and goes back to a log-in screen? Do you mean closes the particular app you happen to be in, again, WHAT?

As for the "classic windows toolbar", nieither XP nor several previous versions have anything like a "toolbar" as I understand it, however you do seem to be indicating some significant difference in the screen immediately after the error event, describing this changed appearance fully and completely might be an important and useful clue. Is it Safe Mode?

If you want to check basic hardware functionality, simply run the BIOS setup at boot time and allow the PC to sit for an extended time. How long woud be dependent on the frequency of error, basically you want about double the time interval between two "quite often" events, starting with the longest observed seperation between two events since they have become more frequent. Its a judgement call. This is a basic heat, component, and power test. Overnite is a good starting point. Turn the monitor off as no software screen saver will be active.

Next, you do a similar test in Safe Mode with Internet physically disconnected. This will begin the process of eliminating basic OS from the list of possible problems. Do absolutely nothing, just wait the same time interval as the BIOS test. A hard disk error check, followed by a Defrag, both using standard Windows tools, would be next.

A scan with Malwarebytes while in Safe mode might be first on the list depending on your unknown surfing habits and also unknown anti-virus procedure, and also depending on the Unknown frequency of the problem and the also unknown general circumstances of PC operations when the error occurs.

[handyguy]

You're supposed to say what type of computer it is.

Your bios is probably set to 'restart' on event.