computer restarts itself randomly, help

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Yeesha, Nov 28, 2004.

  1. Yeesha

    Yeesha Private E-2

    I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, but my computer has been restarting itself a lot lately. About 5 times in the past half hour actually. It just restarts and comes up with the window that says "windows has recovered from a serious error" and if you send the error report it says something about a device driver possibly causing the crash, but not for sure. Is there any way that I can fix it? Is there some faulty part that needs to be replaced? Is it something that I installed? Any help would be awesome.

    I have:
    Windows XP service pack 1
    ECS L7VMM3 motherboard with onboard AMD Athlon XP 3200+
    512 MB RAM
    nVidia Geforce4 MX 4000
    75 GB hard drive
     
  2. ~Pyrate~

    ~Pyrate~ MajorGeek

    try running memtest

    but I think it's more likely you have an outdated or corrupt driver .. so the thing to do is to make sure you have the latest and correct driver for all your components
     
  3. Destructo

    Destructo Corporal

    One problem could be that your heatsink could be clogged with lint. Open up your case and see if there is any build up. Your system might just be overheating.

    have fun

    btw: my system did about the same thing and after replaced just about everything and reformatting it came down to the heat issue.
     
  4. Yeesha

    Yeesha Private E-2

    If it is a heat problem, would that cause games to freeze too?

    And thanks for your ideas :)
     
  5. mcadam

    mcadam Major Amnesia

    heat problems can lead to many problems, game freezes included, also you can experience constant hd loading, bad performance and low hd efficiency.
    get some fans in, if you haven't already.

    also you mentioned something about the device driver message from microsoft site - says it all doesn't it!
    update your drivers!!!!
     
  6. Yeesha

    Yeesha Private E-2

    Thanks again :)
     
  7. mymorph

    mymorph Private E-2

    yeah, i agree with all of the above, also have you added any extra peripheral devices which might be consuming power? your power supply maybe faulty or not giving out enough! (hmm, sounds like some1 iknow....)

    also, as always run a good antivirus program, like avast which u can download from this site.

    good look, happy recovery
     
  8. Yeesha

    Yeesha Private E-2

    Thanks again for all your help. I do have two fans, and Norton Antivirus 2004. I had these problems as soon as I got the computer, before anything was installed, although it does get worse as more programs are installed.
     
  9. Triaxx2

    Triaxx2 MajorGeek

    Sounds like a Ram problem. Namely, you don't have enough. I've had the same problem before, so now I closely monitor the memory I'm using. Even with eighty MB in this one, I still get those random restarts. I can't wait for my other computer to get up.
     
  10. Yeesha

    Yeesha Private E-2

    Um, in case anyone is wondering, it turned out to be a problem with the motherboard.

    Thanks so much for your help
     
  11. Phatsta

    Phatsta Corporal

    To get rid of the annoying restart so that you could actually work on the problem;

    Go system properties > Advanced > Start-up and recovery settings > untick reboot automatically

    In case it'd happen again :)
     

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