PCA Forums

A guy I know is having some serious computer problems. His computer has started rebooting a lot. It was running great until about a week ago, and it started rebooting seemingly at random.

There have been no hardware installs since the computer was built (about a year ago). So I don't think it is an IRQ problem.

My theory is that something in the hardware has failed. Since the computer had been runningly stably, then it started rebooting with no changes from the user, a fan may have died or something. I don't live in the same town as him, so I haven't had a chance to go check it out yet. I am simply canvasing to get suggestions.

So... any suggestions? Thanks!

Working blind here but:

- If it's Win2K or WinXP, both will automatically reboot on certain serious errors. Right click My Computer->properties->Advanced->Startup & Recovery. Uncheck "Automatically reboot".

- CPU may be overheating (I doubt it - that'll more likely cause a lockup not a reboot)

- Power supply may be going bad.

- Other than that SOMETHING must have changed either in hardware or drivers.

Hope this helps....

Could be something on the motherboard. I had to repair several machines that were doing this where I work. The machines were older and the motherboards were just dying, not to mention that the people who use the machines beat them(I work as a computer tech at a high school!). Sometimes it just happens with age.

Oh, it's Win98.

He said he hasn't changed anything since I set it up for him over a year ago. He only uses like 4-5 applications (IE, Quicken, Office), and he has a dial-up. That was all set up then. He said he installed a new printer, but that was a few months ago.

I don't think Windows 98 does any automatic updating, but I don't remember. I was afraid that he got an update notification and that screwed it up.

I am going to go check it out tomorrow. It sounds to me like something is dying in the hardware. It very well could be the Power Supply. That seems to be the most common component to die with age. I hope it isn't the motherboard. It is a P3 with a Globalwin HS on it. Those things scare the hell out of me to install/uninstall.