Windows reboots suddenly

[Jimmy Hsu]

Lately, my Win XP would reboot suddenly for no apparent reason. This
happened usually shortly after the PC cold boots. It also happens when I
open msconfig and scrolling through the startup tab.

I have ran anti virus software AVG 8, Spybot, Xsoft, Ad Aware 2008 but
found no malware or virus. What should I do?


Thks

 

[Clark]

Lately, my Win XP would reboot suddenly for no apparent reason. This
happened usually shortly after the PC cold boots. It also happens
when I open msconfig and scrolling through the startup tab.

I have ran anti virus software AVG 8, Spybot, Xsoft, Ad Aware 2008 but
found no malware or virus. What should I do?


Thks

I think you have a hardware issue but it could be software too try this,
goto Start, settings, control panel, system, advanced tab, startup and
recovery, untick automatic restart,
this will allow you to see the error message when it crashes, you might also
want to go into administrative tools and look at your event viewer...

Clark...

 

[Malke]

Lately, my Win XP would reboot suddenly for no apparent reason. This
happened usually shortly after the PC cold boots. It also happens when
I
open msconfig and scrolling through the startup tab.

I have ran anti virus software AVG 8, Spybot, Xsoft, Ad Aware 2008 but
found no malware or virus. What should I do?

Stop the computer from doing the automatic reboot so you can get the Stop
Error. This will appear on a Blue Screen with white letters. Write down the
Stop Error and research it here:

http://www.aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm

If you need help with what you find at AumHA, then that page will also give
you an idea of how much of the Stop Error text to include in your next
post.

To stop the automatic restart, go to Control Panel>System>Advanced>Startup
and Recovery>Settings and under System Failure uncheck "Automatically
Restart".

Malke

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Lately, my Win XP would reboot suddenly for no apparent reason. This
happened usually shortly after the PC cold boots. It also happens when I
open msconfig and scrolling through the startup tab.

I have ran anti virus software AVG 8, Spybot, Xsoft, Ad Aware 2008 but
found no malware or virus. What should I do?

Two points:

1. If your computer is restarting spontaneously, you are presumably
blue-screening, and you are set to the default of rebooting whenever
that happens. It's a poor default setting and you should change it.
Right-click My Computer, and choose Properties. On the Advanced tab,
click Settings under Startup and Recovery. Under System failure,
uncheck the box "Automatically restart.

Now when the problem occurs again, instead of restarting, you will get
the blue screen with diagnostic information. Post back with those
details for more help.

2. This is far more likely to be a hardware issue (such as
overheating) than a Windows one.

 

[Jimmy Hsu]

Nope it didnt work. I uncheck the box "Automatically restart" as you
folks advised. But after a while, sure enough it rebooted again. But no
Blue Screen od Death with Diagnostic Information..

Instead the screen hangs at the point where a Flash screen with the User
logo in the center of the screen. What should I do.

 

[HeyBub]

2. This is far more likely to be a hardware issue (such as
overheating) than a Windows one.

Or underheating. It's common on a cold start and this is often caused by a
cold-solder joint. When the machine warms up, it makes better electrical
contact.

 

[Unknown]

Make sure AC line cord has good connection (not loose). Could be power
supply failure.

Nope it didnt work. I uncheck the box "Automatically restart" as you
folks advised. But after a while, sure enough it rebooted again. But
no Blue Screen od Death with Diagnostic Information..

Instead the screen hangs at the point where a Flash screen with the User
logo in the center of the screen. What should I do.

 

[Malke]

Nope it didnt work. I uncheck the box "Automatically restart" as you
folks advised. But after a while, sure enough it rebooted again. But
no Blue Screen od Death with Diagnostic Information..

Instead the screen hangs at the point where a Flash screen with the User
logo in the center of the screen. What should I do.

As many other posters have suggested, this is most likely a hardware fault.
Either do the troubleshooting yourself or if this is an OEM machine call
tech support, or take the machine to a competent local computer
professional. I don't suggest using a BigComputerStore/GeekSquad type of
place.

Malke

 

[Jimmy Hsu]

On cool rebooting, I noticed a message "NTDRL Missing, Press Ctrl-Alt-Del
to restart". I did that and it reboots OK. So far so good, but I may be
zapped again anytime now.

I ran msconfig, went to Startup tabs, and looked at what has been loaded
during bootup. Nothing unusual there. My antivirus defenses have removed
any possible virus sneaking un during bootup.

To avoid overheating, I brought a big fan to blow at the PC case, and I am
in my air-conditioned bedroom. . So far so good. I've also disabled the
Screen Saver.

It is still odd that there is no Blue Screen of death with diagnostic info,
because I hace uncheck the box Automatic Restart.

 

[Jimmy Hsu]

Oh...incidentally should I boot up in Safe Mode (F8) and run Trend Micro's
HijackThis (HJT) util;ity to get a screen dump? Only problem is I dont
know how to inteepret those cryptic output gobbledegook from the screen
dump.

 

[My Own IT dept]

I'm not a technical guy (hence my display name), but I had the same
re-booting problem when I revewed my subscription to Kaspersky AV and
installed an update. What I found on a help site was the suggestion to
unistall KAV and my firewall (Comodo) and then reinstall KAV first and THEN
Comodo. It solved the problem.
I hope that helps.