Computer restarts by itself

No clue why this is happening.
Aviria, Comodo, and Spybot are resident.

 

Steve, Auto Restart was already unchecked.

 

Sorry Steve - completely missed that. XP Pro.
It happens overnight, so I don't know when. Aviria runs at about 3a.m. which makes me suspicious.

 

Can't find one Steve.

 

you might try to download Process Monitor (procmon) from Microsoft.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

You can set it to record all processes, and I'm pretty sure you can limit the size of the file.

Load that up and start it recording when you go to bed.
After restart, it will not resume.
When you get up, you can look at the contents and probably see what caused the restart.

Sort of a surveillance camera for your PC.

 

Just downloaded it.
Set to capture events.
Where do I look in the a.m.?
Thx

 

Just noticed this on your response...
If you feel that a user has helped you with your question, please remember to add to their reputation by clicking on the "Add to (user's) Reputation" icon for the post(s) that helped you.

Where do I do this?

 

You'll want to poke around in the settings.

You want it to be writing the file as it runs, and limit the size to say 15 or 20 MB.
If it is not writing the file as it runs, when it shuts down, the temp file may be lost in the temp folder.

It's been a while since I used it, but it's a cool tool.

You can add to members reputation by clicking on the "Add to reputation" button in the post(s).

Enjoy.

 

I must be blind. I don't see it anywhere.

 

You want it to be writing the file as it runs, and limit the size to say 15 or 20 MB.
If it is not writing the file as it runs, when it shuts down, the temp file may be lost in the temp folder.

I don't have a clue how to do this.

 

hmmm, let me poke around and see if I can find the settings.

It may be a few minutes as I'm working on an Access issue in another forum at the moment.

 

Thx.
Is that Bilbo, as in Baggins?

 

Well, it looks like Process Monitor may not work for this usage.
There is no question that if software is resetting your box, Process Monitor would record it.
However, I have not used it for this exact purpose, and upon investigation, it appears there are some settings challenges related to using it for this purpose.

When you open it, by default, it starts recording right away.
I suggest stopping it by clicking the "Capture" button or by pressing CTRL+E
Also by default, when you open it, it is set to store the events in the page file, to the maximum capacity of the page file.
This can be changed by clicking FILE > BACKING FILES...
There you will find the option to select it to store the events in a specific file.
However, there are two challenges to this option:
1. There is no way to limit the file size
2. If you try to prevent filling your hard drive and force the file size small by recording a flash drive (which I just tried) it does not dump events off the back to record new events on the front. It keeps appending approx 250MB files with extra numbers and then errors out when the drive is full.

So, for this to work for this usage, you would need to:
1. Be willing to risk temporarily filling your entire hard drive. I say temporarily because the files are easily deleted when completed. In fact, in the morning, one could easily delete all the files except for the last 1 or 2 because the events in question will be located there.
2. Shut down all applications to keep the events to a minimum so as to get as much recording time as possible before the drive fills up. It only took me about 3 minutes to write a 250MB file, but then I had SEVERAL APPs deliberately open and running so I could test what happens when it hits the ceiling quickly, rather than slowly. Presumably, a system with nothing running would take MUCH longer to fill each 250MB size file. I'll do a test on this as I am quite curious about potential maximum recording time anyway. However, I'll have to wait because I have some other things running right now which have to run to completion before I can shut them down.


BTW, Steve makes a good point above.

As an additional troubleshooting step, you might also try first to perform a CLEAN BOOT just before you go to bed, and then leave the PC turned on and see if it restarts.

 

At the bottom of each post on the left hand side there's 3 Icons...

1) Online/Offline (round)
2) Add to reputation (My Eyes fail me but it looks like a couple of bells)
3) Report post, as in abuse (Exclamation Mark in a triangle).

Hovering the mouse pointer over each will let you know what they do.

 

who not : right Click "My Computer " - Manage - Event Viewer - System - and look for RED Icons there...

you should find something like this : "Event id: 6008-the previous shutdown was unexpected,event id 1076-0x805000f" ...

let us know if you found this thing there, ...and whether are other errors present in 5-15 minutes period from it ( you may look in Application too )

 

Thx! Now I see it.