PC is re-starting by itself

My PC began to restart by itself in the middle of a login section.

I have not installed any new program or driver or whatever in the machine for months, and out of the blue, screen just goes black, as if someone pushed "reset ", and it re-start again.

This is causing me trouble losing audio sections in Cool Edit Pro (my multitrack audio software). All cases happened while Cool Edit was running, but this defect is new, I have been using the same software for months and had no problem like this before.

Can someone help me indicating what may be wrong?

Thanks in advance,
regis@usp.br

 

Hi Regis RAF
Go to your control panel and select system properties.

Select the advanced tab, and click Startup and Recovery.

There is an option under system failure that defaults to checked for "automatically reboot" . Make sure this is unchecked. It won't solve your problem, but it will prevent your computer from rebooting when it crashes. This way, you'll receive a blue screen with an error message that may help diagnose the cause of the crash.


Daizy

 

What Operating system are you using ?
If NT,2000 or Xp, have a look in the system and application event logs (run: eventvwr), there may be some clues here ...

 

Thanks Daizy for the tip. I have unmarked the "automatically reboot" option in Startup and Recovery.
Thanks FAB. Event viewer has no entries regarding system failure followed by reboot/restart. One event reports problem with NBT device, or something, but this sort of message has been coming for several months now, it is not new.

Is it possible that a configuration file or a DLL have become corrupted?

Or, is it possible that dust or other particle inside the computer might be causing this system failure?

Should I reinstall the audio software again? The worst thing I couldn't bear again is full reinstall the windows 2000.....

PC: Win2KPro, PIII 1GHz, 256MB RAM, DVD/CD-RW, SoundBlaster Live, Delta 1010 Audio board/system, 32MB video card.

 

For starters, clean the dust uut, as you yourself mentioned, and while the case is open, make sure all fans are working, that cable connections are firm, and that a retention clip on memory module or cpu hasn't sprung loose.

 

It could be the CPU fan quit working, making the CPU get too hot and the safety feature is cutting off the computer.

 

for while, it stopped restarting because...

I just cleaned the PC inside: disconnected the audio cards, cleaned contacts, blowed away dust, cleaned fans, took out memory cards, dusted them, blowed slots, checked CPU if not loose, put again memory and cards back, defragmented disks, and, of course, took away the "automatically restart" option in the windows configuration.

So far, since then, it hasn't restarted again, not even presented "blue screens ".

Let's see if it keeps well behaved!