PC rebooting at will

[Chadruharazzeb]

So I finally get my broadband sorted out last night. Get my P2P gear up and running and try this much vaunted bittorrent malarky. And I'm tippy-tapping away on this very site when BAM! screen goes black. "WTF?" after a few seconds windows starts booting. When it's finished I log on and lo! it doesn't let me do anything - can't get onto start menu/ control panel/ my computer/ IE. The mouse was moving about and the hard drive had stopped thrashing but it wouldn't do anything. Hard reboot.

It came back on and said "Windows has recovered from a serious error". I thought nothing of it and carried on. A few hours later (2am) I got out of bed to get some water and as I was getting back in I noticed Windows was once again loading up, completely unwarranted. Once again it said windows had recovered from serious error. I gave up on it (2am is not the time to start fixing you PC if you're halfway through your kip) and turned it off.

Could be a hardware fault, yes (nothing in the even log would suggest so), but I think I read somewhere a few months back that some P2P apps were being overseen by copywright holders who would (somehow) restart your machine if they caught you nicking.

Is that right? Should I just disable RPC (even though my firewall is blocking that port anyway), or shall I throw it through the window and never bother with it again.

Taaaaaaaaaa

[Bredrin]

Sounds like a similar problem my mate had.

See if theis helps, goto:

Control Panel > System > Startup and Recovery: Settings

Sytem failure > See if the tab Automaitcally restart is checked.

If so uncheck it and restart your PC.

Hope this helps.

[DjSatansfury]

Sounds like hardware probs

Probably RAM or you've got some setting wrong in the bios


The only time (usually) software reboots the machine, is after installation when you are usually prompted, or if there is a serious system error (with your gfx card drivers for example)


SO i'd give your bios a once over and check your ram. Also make sure the cpu isnt overheating

[Chadruharazzeb]

I'll check that Auto Restart thing later, cheers.

As for the hardware, I did have some new RAM about a month ago and it's been absolutely fine up until now. Just seems odd that it suddenly started with this as soon as I'm doing some mad downloading again. I'll have a look at the CPU temperature thing though.

[mid]

Run Memtest86 for 30 minutes or so (at least long enough to do one full pass of all the tests). Its far more brutal with its testing than your basic tests, and will tell you if there are any memory-related hardware problems.

The other possibility that springs to mind is power - if you've not got enough the PC will reboot itself when it runs out.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Thanks man, I'll try that.

My only doubt about it is that I've been playing all sorts of games on it for hours, thrashing the CPU the memory the graphics card etc, and it's been tip top. The first crash happened whilst I was merely browsing, the second was just downloading with all other apps closed.

On reflection there were a couple of critical entries in the event log, but I couldn't make head nor tail of them.

PSU is a possibility: it's pretty old and only 250W.

[Ciaran]

250W? Sounds likely, what are your specs?

[Chadruharazzeb]

Got Athlon XP, ATi 9600, CDRW, DVD yadda yadda... maybe it is a power problem. Thinking about it. I'll disconnect one of my drives and see if that helps the situation or even narrow down what the problem may be.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Only closer inspection it seems to be a Bittorrent problem:

WTF! The past 3 times I've tried to get in on a bittorrent, I get a little
ways through it and my pc decides that it's gonna reboot....and then after,
I go back and try to get back in on the same BT session and the BT window
does nothing...I open it up and it just sits there.

I thought maybe it was a virus, but I just updated my AVG antivirus and ran
it and found no virii.

Ack!
I hate computers
cliff

I thought I had virus as well! And ran AVG!! And found nothing! Small world, eh.

[Valken]

There's a mention of BitTorrent bluescreening/force rebooting PCs if you have a certain type of modem or a linksys NIC...

Check out http://www.bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent

[Fragmaster]

Yeah could be that, but also chuck out that PSU anyway and get at least a 350W. Also keep an eye on your heat but as you said you were thrashing it before with no probs so it most likely isn't.

Good luck!

[Chadruharazzeb]

Inexplicably I left it (BT) running while I was at work and it was fine. According to google groups there can be a problem with cetain NIC's and their subsequent drivers.

I've installed the pukka driver for my NIC now, so I'll let it run over night and see what happens.

[charlesr]

Did you install a network card for connecting to a router for BB? If you've been rummaging around in there you could have nudged a card. Try pushing all the cards into place firmly?

[Chadruharazzeb]

Nah, I just use a USB modem and an onboard network card. Thanks anyway.

I left bittorrent running all night and all of today without incident. Whatver the problem may have been seems to have disappeared.

Touchy wood.

[Vaipon]

Nah, I just use a USB modem and an onboard network card. Thanks anyway.

I left bittorrent running all night and all of today without incident. Whatver the problem may have been seems to have disappeared.

Touchy wood.

NIC driver.