System reboots on its own!

[dcgoff]

My son?s computer will randomly shuts itself down and restart on it?s on and I have no idea why! He had been having some problems (he thinks he had a virus) and the system keep loosing the CMOS info. So I replaced the CMOS battery, formatted his hard drive and then reinstalled Win XP home edition. He loaded his video and sound drivers and a couple of games. You can be on the internet or playing a game and the system will just shut down and restart on its own and with no warning. He now tells me that this is one of the problems that he had before. Any ideas would be most helpful.

 

[shimsham]

i suspect the power supply may be too weak, or going bad.

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums One possible cause of automatic shutdowns is that the computer is vulnerable to a certain type of worm attack. There are also hardware-related causes. Could you answer these questions to fill in the info:

1) Is your Internet connection a high-speed connection such as cable or DSL?

2) How many computers share the connection at your house?

3) Do you have a router or not

4) Does his computer have a software firewall or not

5) Does his computer have Service Pack 2 for WindowsXP or not

6) Does his computer have antivirus software, and if so, what brand and version (eg Norton Antivirus 2004 or whatever)

7) What can you tell us about his computer (eg Dell Dimension 4600, or your own build and what specs)

 

[stevty2889]

Yes, please post the specs of the computer. My first guess would either be a weak or dying PSU, or overheating problems.

 

[Appledrop]

generally rebooting on its own means :-
[*]Failing power supply
[*]Bad RAM
[*]Overheating problems (check temp in bios)

if you could swap out each of these in turn with components from another PC, you should eventually be able to pinpoint the problem.

good luck

 

[wchou]

1.cpu is bad
2.mobo is bad
3.power supply is insufficient
4.running to many hd? or too many fans? try cutting out a few.