Hi All, I am facing the disgusting "windows frequently restarts" problem. I am using Compaq Presario X1028US laptop with Intel Pentium Centrino 1.5 GHZ processor, 512 MB RAM and a 160 GB hard disk with Windows XP SP 3 as the OS. I regularly update the anti virus (AVG) and the Windows automatically. The most recent change to the system was to upgrade AVG from 8.5 to 9.0 which was done yesterday. Everything was fine until today morning when the laptop started restarting by itself. I first ignored it and continued to work and it became more and more frequent. I have referred several posts on the internet and have done all the things mentioned below in order but the problem still persists. I am not able to pin point to the cause of the problem. It should be noted that the problem exists only in the normal mode of Windows XP and not in the Safe Mode. 1) Uninstall AVG 9.0 thinking that it might be the reason for the problem. Problem still persists. 2) Check the heat at the bottom of the laptop. It is not very hot. The fan is still running at times. 3) Changed the bios setting to make the fan run always when connected to AC power. Fan runs fine but problem persists in Windows Normal mode. 4) Install AVG 8.5 which worked stably for a long time for me without issues. Then ran a full system scan of the machine through the AVG command line scanner while in Windows XP Safe Mode. Nothing Found. 5) As suggested by some people on different forums, I formatted the C drive alone and reinstalled the XP OS. Now it is Windows XP SP 1. Still the problem persists as soon as the setup finished and Windows loaded for the first time. It only became frequent. After Windows was loaded for the first time the laptop restarted itself at least 5 or 6 times within 10 minutes. 6) Downloaded the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool and ran the extended tests in that to see if it has to do anything with the RAM. The laptop didnt restart even once during the almost 1 hour that it took to run those tests. Finally no errors were found. I am really short of ideas now as to what can be done to trace the error. Kindly advice. Does anyone think that I should format the entire hard disk and reinstall windows again just to try? I am just thinking about that because I dont have enough space in my external hard drive to backup the entire data in my D and E drives.

right click My Computer >> Properties >> Advanced tab >> click Settings under Startup and Recovery pane >> uncheck Automatic Restart >> click OK / Apply if it`s BSOD, you should now read and post the error codes

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state To help troubleshoot error messages or other issues when you cannot determine the cause of the issue, disable common startup programs, settings, and drivers to eliminate possible software conflicts when you start Microsoft Windows XP. This procedure is known as "clean booting." --------------------------------------- Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced tab, Settings button (Startup and Recovery), uncheck Automatically Restart. Now you should get an error message when it happens again. ------------------ Find a list of STOP MESSAGES(BSOD) here: http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm

Disconnect all external devices (USB, etc) and see if that helps.

Hi, Actually I had done this at the first even before uninstalling AVG 9.0. I forgot to mention that. Still I didnt get any blue screen nor an errors in the event log. Again I am not at all clear why safe mode works fine. Infact I am posting this reply from safe mode. Is it some problem with a hardware that doesnt get loaded in safe mode? After formatting and reinstalling the OS I have again unchecked the automatically restart windows option. I havent got any blue screen with error but the laptop just restarts automatically like before. There is no mini dump created and no information in the error log. I havent connected any external devices. Infact I havent installed the device drivers also yet after reinstalling windows. I have just installed the Windows XP SP1. Still the problem is happening.

I had the same but in both modes and it had to do with wuauclt.exe . Windows Automatic updater. I had to load DOS 6 from a floppy and FDISK the drive! It was guarenteed to lose windows OS boot sectors and wipe the drive. I did try as you done but experienced failures. Or if you have some sort of Spinrite program It is a disk recovery program that came from the Fires of Pheonex in the early 90's

Thanks for your response tommy. Right now I am running Windows XP SP1 on my laptop after re installing the OS. Do you think the wuaudt.exe will run in SP1?