Hello there, my computer keeps restarting itself. It started about a week after i got my cable Internet hooked up. It restarts at any given time, but frequently if i have multiple programs open (i.e. photoshop, imageready, musicmatch, etc...). I've done multiple virus scans and ran a full system restore, but it still restarts at least once a day. I have a small theory that might help me...but i seriously doubt that i know what I’m talking about, so this is a stab in the dark: I'm under the assumption that in order for the computer to restart, it must call upon a certain command prompt that triggers it to restart. I.E. when you click Start, Shutdown, Restart...it tells the computer to restart...so is there a way i can view any and all files or programs that have the ability to restart the computer? I believe i might be able to recognize the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for your time and patience. -Ron

There are many things that can cause your problem. The first one is ram. You did not list how much RAM you have, but 256 is a minimum for XP for the best performance. Second is that there are to many programs running at startup and in the background at the same time(use http://pacs-portal.uk to determine what programs are essential). Third is overheating, since you have an AMD cpu. Your power supply might be faulty or inadequate.

Windows Xp and 2000 are set up to automatically shut down and reboot when a critical error takes place, rather than giving you any error message, which isn't helpful! To cure this problem, right click on My Computer, then select Properties, then Advanced. Under the section "Start-up and Recovery", click settings, then under the section "System Failure", untick the option to automatically restart and click OK. Now when yur poor pc feels stressed it'll at least give you some warning!

Lol, i've just realised i didn't give you much of a solution there! The man up there is right, it could be memory, but wait 'n' see what error message you get next time it wants to close down. Windows Xp uses STOP errors, which are generally a lot more useful than the old '98 ones. A majority of STOP errors are caused by, yes, you guessed it, driver problems. Xp uses drivers in a different way to previous versions and it's important to use signed drivers. Many devices don't have signed drivers though, so what can you do? you can either risk it, or if an older signed driver exists, use that one instead. STOP errors can usually be tracked down using the Microsoft knowledge base ie. write down exactly what the message is telling you, then go and search Microsofts knowledge base to determine exactly which driver is causing the pain. Going back to the memory thing, if the error is not a STOP, but a FATAL EXCEPTION, then this could well point towards dodgy RAM. I think the power theory is very unlikely, but an easy way to make sure is using this list to find how much power you're sucking out of your PSU............... Pentium 4 and Athlon - 105 watts Duron - 85 watts Pentium 3 - 65 watts Celeron - 60 watts Typical grafix card - 25 watts (Although the Radeon 9700 is in excess of 40!!) Hard drive - 15 watts CDRW - 10 watts Cooling fan - 4 watts Floppy drive - 10 watts PCI card - up to 25 watts Cold cathode light - 3 watts This means that in a typical system with, say, a P4, GeForce4, one hard drive, a floppy and CDRW drive, a sound card, network card, and modem, you will need around 250 watts, and thats before you take the power requirements of your RAM and Motherboard into consideration. So anyway, i'm boring myself now, so u must be close to suicide, lol. Use the list above to find out how much wattage your hardware is drawing from your PSU. Basically, 300w is the minimum size for a PSU these days, with 350w being HIGHLY reccomended. YAWN. Lol, good luck.

My computer started to reboot itself regularly.I dicovered that a fuse in the fuse and power box belonging to my house had a corroded and dirty fuse which caused a reduced power supply to my PC.After replacing the faulty fuse and holder the rebooting problem was rectified Regards Steve