XP keeps rebooting

Okay. I am stuck, although I admit that I'm not that knowledgable about what I'm doing trying to find the problem.

I have XP with the sp3. Just this past week it started rebooting frequently. When it does there is no BSOD (I even shut off the automatic restart). Instead it is like someone presses the restart button. Sometimes it even gets into a loop where Windows doesn't open at all.

We had a preliminary diagnostic done and found that the memory is fine. They didn't think it was a power supply problem because it was less than 2 years old and provides sufficient power for our system. They did find a number of errors related to the video card, but said the card itself looks okay. We dealt with the video card errors (we still had some things from a previous video card on the system).

After that it seemed to run a lot better. Although it still restarted randomly. It would just stay open longer. I started checking the event manager for the system and found a couple of errors that occured when it would shut down. The first being 7009 for Timed out (30000 milliseconds) waiting for Roxio Hard Drive Watcher 9 service to connect. We turned that service off temporarily. We also have a 7022 error that occurs with the rebooting. This one is for HP Cue Device Discovery service hung on starting. We have a number of HP products and were hesitant to shut that one off.

I almost forgot. I ran the AVG anti-virus we have at the beginning and all was good. I tried to run it again today after an update and it rebooted before it could finish. So, I'm now doing a portion at a time. So far so good. The temperatures are good too. We also have 4 case fans and a large fan inside for the power supply too (we got some parts from a gamer a couple of years ago).

Finally, my son and I noticed that it mostly shuts down after we haven't used the keyboard or mouse for a short time. For instance, when we worked on a farm on facebook and stopped to wait for the work to be done. As long as we are typing or clicking it usually stays on for quite a while. This definitely seems to be the case about 98% of the time, but I haven't ruled out a coincidence.

Nevertheless, I'm stumped. If anyone is able to help at all, it is greatly appreciated and I thank now even before you reply. It seems there is a lot of problems similar to mine with lots of causes. I hope I've given the information that is needed here.

Thank you.
Ang

 

PC: ACPI Multi-processor PC/Home Build

Motherboard: AsusTek Computer Inc. Ai Series P4C800 Deluxe

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 32-bit 4600+ 2.6 GHz

Memory: 2 slots of Corsair PC 3200 512Mb

Video: ATI Radeon 9600 Series AGP 128Mb

Hard Drive 1: Western Digital WDC WD5000AACS-00ZUB0 500.1Gb SATA

Hard Drive 2: Seagate ST3160023AS 160Gb SATA

Optical Drive: Lite-On DVDRW LDW-811S

Power Supply: Antec True Power Trio 430W

Sound Card: SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio

Floppy: Yes

Internet: DSL

Monitor: LiquidVideo Plug and Play CMC 17:AD

OS: XP Home Edition SP3

 

Also, it kept shutting off on me when I ran the AVG virus scan. It did something so that I couldn't get on long enought to do anything. That's why it took me so long to post my system info.

I did manage to uninstall AVG and install the Microsoft Security Essentials (something I wanted to do before all of this). It found a virus that I could remove. Now it stays on longer again, but still shuts down randomly.

I also checked the temps and they are all good. Also, no errors in the event manager logs.

Still stumped.

 

Run Error Checking (CHKDSK) on your drive/s. Look it up in Help and Support. You will need to make sure it is run on each drive (if you have more than one, the partition/drive were Windows is installed).

By the way, welcome to the BBS.

Matt

 

Pete, I got the temps from the a combination of SIW and the thermometer on the front of my case (we have a digital one that is part of the case to monitor parts inside the case).

Pete & Matt, thank you. I will try what is suggested and get back to you.

I've recently discovered something else. As long as my sons are playing a game that requires a disk (like Lego Star Wars, Knights of the old Republic or Battlefront) the computer doesn't shut down. Or at least, it hasn't.