My friends computer seems to be restarting itself.When hes at the Windows xp screen.What does he do?.He can't even go into safe mode or nothing.

This post has been edited by Sunneh: Jul 28 2006, 02:59 AM

Several reasons can make that. Some more tests could give us more info, which could be helpful.
1) Isn't it a cooling problem ? Did you try to power off the PC and try again after a couple of hours, when the weather is cool ?
2) Did you do something before this problem occurs ? Did you plug something new on this computer ? Simply try to unplug everything : unplug the keyboard, the mouse, and every usb adapter, remove any cable, and see if the computer is now able to power up without problem.
3) What happens if you simply boot on a disquette or on the Windows install CD and leave so, without touching anything. Does the PC continue rebooting or not ? If not, there is probably no hardware problem, but you shold consider re-installing Windows. (Or some people here on this forum will suggest you to install Linux ).
Just tell us the result of the previous tests, please.
Regards
Yordan

Not me.. i will recommend lindows.. even at its beta stage it can work good..
if you miss windows, it have the features of windows but not all..
and it have alot of functionality of linux..

--
on my computer.. i use fedora core and a interpreter to run windows program.
damn stupid thing to do.. but it gives me more security

This post has been edited by vhortex: Jul 29 2006, 03:02 AM

yordan made some great points there to follow. I would like to add using a memory scanning tool as well to make sure it's not the RAM causing this problem.

Download the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool at:

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Copy it to a floppy diskette or burn it to a CD (run the program and it will have these options for you). Once that's done, restart your computer and boot from the diskette/CD. It will run the diagnostic tests. Let it run for 10-15 minutes to see if any errors are found. If not, just exit out the program.

QUOTE(yordan @ Jul 29 2006, 02:04 AM)

Several reasons can make that. Some more tests could give us more info, which could be helpful.
1) Isn't it a cooling problem ? Did you try to power off the PC and try again after a couple of hours, when the weather is cool ?
2) Did you do something before this problem occurs ? Did you plug something new on this computer ? Simply try to unplug everything : unplug the keyboard, the mouse, and every usb adapter, remove any cable, and see if the computer is now able to power up without problem.
3) What happens if you simply boot on a disquette or on the Windows install CD and leave so, without touching anything. Does the PC continue rebooting or not ? If not, there is probably no hardware problem, but you shold consider re-installing Windows. (Or some people here on this forum will suggest you to install Linux ).
Just tell us the result of the previous tests, please.
Regards
Yordan

I would like a reason for that after these reasons yordan added, as he nearly covered all reasons for such a problem that happens always to microsoft holes "windows":

4) after installing windows and before updating it or installing Service Pack 2 you will get some nasty popup windows that give your pc a hit with some viruses and spyware applications, some of them leads your pc to close or restart in main time it allows you to close your applications in that time like 30 seconds or a minute, you can do something to enforce your pc not to restart or shutdown automatically by:-
a) click on start button and click on run
type in the run prompt "shutdown -a" if it shut down automatically and "restart -a" if it restarts your pc automatically.
c) click ok or press enter and then you can go safely install or update your firewall/anti-virus/anti-spyware.

Best Regards