Strange fault

Compound · 1 Oct 2010 at 17:37

Wonder if you guys can help

My PC has developed a fault whereby it randomly restarts for no reason randomly. It can be either when gaming or browsing the Internet.

The screen just goes black and the machine reboots but stays on the post screen and will only restart when I press the reset button.

Once back in windows it recognises that it has recovered from a serious error but I have no idea what is causing it.

Any thoughts?

1Day · 1 Oct 2010 at 18:43

I wonder when last you gave your PC a good clean - I have just opened up a PC from the local school that was doing the exact same thing as your one is doing. And I found the CPU cooler was choked with dust. Once I blew the dust off things have been perfect again.

If it is not dust - are you getting any error code at all?

KnightsWhoSayNi · 1 Oct 2010 at 20:21

What is the error message in the system/application log?

Compound · 1 Oct 2010 at 21:20

Don't know how would I access the log? Is it stored for long or only after the next restart

Lemin · 1 Oct 2010 at 22:08

How To Disable the Automatic Restart on System Failure

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/automatic-restart-windows-7.htm

xp...

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/disautorestart.htm

KnightsWhoSayNi · 2 Oct 2010 at 00:07

Try control panel > admin tools > event log or start>admin tools> event log. In here look at the system and application logs. You need to seach through for the time the crash happened so it may be better to wait for the next crash and check these logs immediately after the restart.

When was the last time you cleaned the graphics card's heat sink and fan?