computer restarts every so often

[thahenchman]

So i have a p4 on a gigabyte board. had no trouble for about 10 months...then it started to restart every month, then every two weeks...and today it restarted twice.

how can i diagnose the problem? i ran my updated antivirus and found no virus infections.

my fan is very loud...somebody told me it could cause restarts. is there any merit to his claim?

thanks for your help.

 

[aGreenAgent]

It's probably a driver error, or overheating (fan-related).

The loudness of the fan shouldn't affect anything.

Do you have the latest drivers for everything?

 

[tk11]

You can diagnose by going to control panel>system>startup and recovery settings>uncheck automatically restart>ok
Next time it happens instead of restarting it will display a blue screen with some info about the error.

If your fan is loud it may be running faster than normal because your system is running hotter than normal which may cause odd problems. Open the case and blow out any dust on the heatsink.

 

[montag451]

Also, go into event viewer [found in administrative tools] and post the errors that relate to the time the system shuts down, including:
Source
Event ID
text description

 

[FlyingPenguin]

If the fan started getting load around this time, that may certainly indicate the cause of the restarts is overheating. If the fan is making noise, the bearings are failing, and it's not running at the proper speed.

 

[pkypkypky]

which fan are you talking about? If it's vid/cpu I'd look for a replacement immediately. Most of those manufactuers will glady send you a replacement, so do it before you burn out your components regardless if this is what is causing your restarts. It's an easy fix that could save you a lot of money later on.

 

[Kaspian]

try swaping ur power supply with one with more wattage, when the power supply cant keep up with ur puters power consumption it causes random reboots......also what fans r u talking about...power supply, cpu, etc and what r u working on when the puter reboots itself.....???