Computer Randomly Reboots

I see that a similar problem exists in the post below, but it's not quite the same and I didn't want to hijack his thread.

Running Win 7 HP 64, my comp 'randomly' just turns itself off and then on again. More often than not it occurs within a half hour or starting up in the morning. Having said that, it can go for weeks without a problem and then today I'm on reboot number 4.

I've checked 'scheduled updates' from quite a few apps in order to see if there is a link there, no change.

I've Googled and found that this is NOT a rare problem, but noone seems to have come up with any solution.

Is it software, is it hardware? I'm over it!! Please help!!

Thanks,
Den

 

Have you cleaned out the dust bunnies inside of it. I clean mine every 6 months or so. You would be supprised how much gets in there no matter how good a house cleaner you are.

 

No, it's worth a thought I suppose.

What methods would you recommend are best to do this?

 

I take mine outside and blow it out with my air compresser. I do have a dryer on it. You can get canned air from Wally World or K-Mart or computer stores. Just make sure that you DO NOT SPIN the FANS up at a high rate of speed. I usually hold mine with like a Q-Tip. I also use a Q-Tip to wipe the fan blades with as it seems to want to stick/crust on them.

 

It could also be Malware. If after cleaning it out, if things don't improve, head over to the Malware section and run the scans and post the results and let Broni take a look.

It could also be a bad stick of ram, but I don't think it is. Most of the time they are either good or bad and not inbetween. But weird things do happen at times.

 

(****! It rebooted again and I had to re-sign in to WinBBS)

I'm actually in the process of buying a new HDD for it so will give me an opportunity to clean it and reinstall the OS.

 

Ok. Just remember that HEAT is a computers worst enemy. The longer the heat is there, the worse it will be. Not saying that heat is your problem here for sure.

 

Bill,
an update - my intention was to replace the primary (IDE) HDD with a SATA drive. I was just about to order the new SATA drive when, just to be certain, I put hand in to feel the HDD connectors and discovered two things; 1) It is already a SATA drive and 2) the PC rebooted itself again.

Have tightened up the data and power connectors - that was 4 days ago - and it hasn't played up since.

Here's hoping,
Thanks,
Den

 

Glad/Hope that fixed it. Did you clean it out while you were at it?

 

Along with the HDD I was also ordering 4G of Ram and a new fan, so the the whole lot will get a going over soon. You'll hear from me if it plays up again....

PS - I see you live in Fl, hope you're safe from Sandy....

 

Randon reboots is one of the tedious troubleshooting as it requires so much testing. But for me I would start with easy and free troubleshooting like:
Scanning your computer with your updated antivirus/malwarebytes, cleaning it with ccleaner, then update your OS. After this then it hardware test will next.
good luck!