Why does my PC keep restarting?

[?pint]

I'll be doing something on my PC - chatting, sitting around doing nothing, gaming - and then it'll just randomly reboot. No warning, nada. Usually, I've found, it's when there's a lot of processing going on. Like, if I'm playing a game, or if I have a lot of applications running. Still, it's annoying, and I'm sure there's a likely explanation for it. It's also only recently started since I updated Windows and a bunch of drivers too.

Another problem, is that I might be playing a game or something - no game in particular, and the PC just crashes to desktop. Like, it just exits... no warning, or anything. Again, annoying.


<waits for yashiro's response >

[Vaipon]

It's probably crashing rather than simply rebooting. You've probably got WinXP set to auto-reboot when it Blue Screens. Check your event log. You might also want to disable the auto-reboot feature so that you can better diagnose next time it happens.

Right click my computer icon
Click properties
Click "advanced" tab
Under "startup and recovery" click "settings
Uncheck "Automatically Restart"

Things that could be causing the crash are stuff like bad drivers, over-heating, faulty components etc. Best thing to do is update all your drivers to latest, download latest OS service pack, and check all your fans are rotating properly.

[?pint]

Unfortunately Vaipon, that was the solution last time I voiced this problem on IRC. And it seemed to work, but the thing is the reboot thing is unchecked . Actually, one thing to mention, is it did come up with a blue screen twice today when playing FF11. It said something about checking drivers or something....

[yashiro]

When did this issue start?
Also which driver file does it mention when it crashes?

Firstly get most up to date sound and video drivers.

Have you been knocking your case about?

Could be a loose power connection.
Perhaps your video/ram/cpu arent sitting right in their sockets.
Perhaps your mobo is touching your case? (short)
Cpu overheating
Video card overheating
Bad ram (usually causes hard locks or bsod though)