XP leads a life of its own

[Alver]

My desktop pc (XP sp3, 512 MB mem, 160gb HD, 6 years of age) has taken the
habbit to stop and restart all by itself on an intermittent base, sometimes
twice a day say while doing some Excel work f.i., sometimes while some
other programme is running, like this morning when I was making a back-up
running Paragon Drive Back up 9.0. Some days nothing happens at all and
everything is running fine. Does any of the learned specialists have some
advice to offer?

Thx

Alver

 

[Terry R.]

On 11/12/2009 11:30 AM On a whim, Alver pounded out on the keyboard

My desktop pc (XP sp3, 512 MB mem, 160gb HD, 6 years of age) has taken the
habbit to stop and restart all by itself on an intermittent base, sometimes
twice a day say while doing some Excel work f.i., sometimes while some
other programme is running, like this morning when I was making a back-up
running Paragon Drive Back up 9.0. Some days nothing happens at all and
everything is running fine. Does any of the learned specialists have some
advice to offer?

Thx

Alver

Hi Alver,

Those are the hardest to t-shoot. I have a similar workstation that will
freeze randomly. Sometimes it will go for weeks, other times it freezes
day after day. But only once in a day. Can't figure that one out, at
least yet.

I would make sure the vents, fans, etc. inside the box are free of dust
buildup. Heat can cause freezing, rebooting, etc.

Make sure automatic restart is disabled:
Click Start, Run, type sysdm.cpl and click OK
Click Advanced tab, and Settings button under Startup and Recovery.
Under System failure, uncheck Automatically restart.

If the system blue screens, write down the explanation and codes.
Google search them.

Try running in Windows Safe Mode w/Networking (reboot, press F8
repeatedly until menu appears, select your option). If everything works,
you may have a buggy driver (video card, etc).

Report back,


Terry R.

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf [MVP]]

My desktop pc (XP sp3, 512 MB mem, 160gb HD, 6 years of age) has taken the

habbit to stop and restart all by itself on an intermittent base, sometimes
twice a day say while doing some Excel work f.i., sometimes while some
other programme is running, like this morning when I was making a back-up
running Paragon Drive Back up 9.0. Some days nothing happens at all and
everything is running fine. Does any of the learned specialists have some
advice to offer?

Thx

Alver

By stop and restart do you mean blue screen and reboot, freeze and
reboot, or shutdown not initiated by you and reboot? Please look in
your event viewer for yellow (!) or red events.

- Thee Chicago Wolf [MVP]

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My desktop pc (XP sp3, 512 MB mem, 160gb HD, 6 years of age) has taken the
habbit to stop and restart all by itself on an intermittent base,

You are presumably blue-screening and are set to the default (a poor
default, in my view) of rebooting when that happens. Right-click on My
Computer and choose Properties. On the "Advanced" tab, under "Startup
and Recovery," click "Settings," then under "System failure," uncheck
the box "Automatically restart." That will prevent it from restarting
and keep the blue screen up.

Then you will be to read the blue screen and copy down what it says.
Post back with that information for more help.

sometimes
twice a day say while doing some Excel work f.i., sometimes while some
other programme is running, like this morning when I was making a back-up
running Paragon Drive Back up 9.0. Some days nothing happens at all and
everything is running fine. Does any of the learned specialists have some
advice to offer?

It's very likely a hardware issue, but do the above to get more info.

 

[Alver]

Hi, I have not seen a blue screen for years. I also checked the System
failure and "Automatically restart" was unchecked. So where do I go from
here?

rgds Alver