My computer likes to restart and shut down by itself for no reason.

[Shinobi128]

This is been driving me batty for the last half a year, and I can't take it anymore. Here is what is happening:

- Whenever ever the computer is shutdown, I can't turn it on by simply pressing the power button. The computer turns on, but nothing happens. In order for me to get to actually start, I have to cut the power to it and then try to turn it back on again. This works about 1 in every 150 attempts. When I finally get it on, I get into the bios and the following error.

During the last boot-up, your system hung for an improper CPU speed setting. Your system is now working in safe mode. To optimize the system peformance and reliability,make sure the CPU speed conforms to the specifications of your CPU.

I save the changes, and about 1 in 10 attempts Windows will start. If not, repeat process above.

- My computer will restart for no apparent reason. This usually happens when I'm not using it.

- I leave my computer on 24/7, and sometimes I will come home to find out it decided to shut itself down.

- I have to manually connect to my DSL, sometimes when I hit connect it restarts on me. Also, I don't have a router yet, so I have to take the network cable out of my computer to hook it up to my Xbox when I want to play on Live. When I'm done, I'll plug it back into my computer and it'll restart itself.

- Sometimes my keyboard won't work and I have to restart to get it working.

This has been happeng for about a year now, and it has only been getting worse. I built my machine myself and up until a year ago this started happening. It can't be my power supply, because this happend before and after I replaced my old one with a new one. What else could it be? I think my motherboard is crapping out on me, but what else could it be?

Thanks in advance.

[Six]

Could be almost anything.

I had a problem similar to this with an old TNT2 that was brand new at the time. My motherboard and the card had some serious issues and I spent the better part of the summer messing with the damn thing.

Eventually I got it working but I don't remember what I did. It was changing settings in the BIOS and the drivers for the motherboard and videocard. Actually, I remember that it had to do with the northbridge that the old Abit Kt7s used conflicting with the AGP port. Or something =/

Good luck.

[cka]

Might be fsb speed, if you're running an athlon I know that you can OC it by tinkering with that. Try setting it to its bare minimum and seeing if that'll fix the problem up. You might lose some mhz in the process but your computer will likely end up more stable.

Also, list us all the components inside your PC in here.

[Shinobi128]

Intel P4 1.8ghz
Asus motherboard
450 W power power supply
Lite-On CD-RW
Lite-On DVD-ROM
Sound Blaster Audigy
Geforce 4 Visiontek TI 4200
IBM 80gb HD
WD 40hb HD
4 seperate fans

[Burky]

My computer went way unstable over summer; 1 in ten times upon loading windows it would freeze, and it went bad to worse. The problem was I had a shitty motherboard, the USB ports didn't work well, neither did the PS/2 port(AsRock - never buy one), and so I bought an MSI one instead and it worked perfectly.
But seeing as your motherboard is a Asus one that seems unlikely, but then again if it doesn't like some of the connections for DSL and crashes, that seems similar to my old one which used to crash when you inserted a USB wire.
If you got a second computer, you could always do some testing; try switching the system memory perhaps.

[Wolffen]

Have you flashed the BIOS for the motherboard to the latest stable release? ASUS normally makes great boards, but I've had problems with them on occasion. Nothing like this, mind you.

Other things to check: try reseating your processor/fan and make sure the fan is secure and straight. As cka said, lower your CPU speed in the bios. Reading around on the net, the three most frequent causes of the problem are: (1) bad cpu, (2) processor fan not properly cooling the CPU for some reason, (3) driver corruption in the OS. Only way to check 3 is to install a second OS in another partion on you HD, or get a spare HD, do the install on it, and see if you have the same problems.

[Burky]

Question for you Shinobi; have you reformatted yet while this problem has taken place?
If you have, then it is definately a problem with the hardware.
Otherwise like Wolffen says, it could just be driver problems.

[Wolffen]

One other thing: When this happens next, power the PC off, and leave it off for 5~10 minutes. Then power it back up and see if it comes up without a hitch. If so, you could definitely be looking at an overheat issue (with 4 fans it's unlikely, but possible).

[raziel]

After a few minutes of being in Windows, restart the computer and go into the BIOS to see the temperature of the CPU. Or you can use downloaded shareware to determine that. I prefer Sandra. The CPU fan may not be in good contact with the CPU. Just take it off, put more thermal paste/gel on it and put it back on and see what happens.

[stormy]

Doesn't sound like a thermal problem to me. It restarts when idle, not when he's using it. You might want to try reseatting the CPU, but personally I'd go the format-reinstall Windows route in your situation. If that doesn't work you're going to have to start pulling hardware. Try a boot-up with as little hardware as possible, pull the soundcard, use the onboard video instead of the GeForce if you have it and see what happens.