Random Restarts

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Tamianth
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Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:50 am

Random Restarts

Post by Guest on Mon Sep 22, 2014 6:20 pm
This is for Windows 7, 64 bit .

My computer keeps restarting itself randomly . My first thought was maybe heat, so I moved it out of the shelf it's on, but it continued.
Next thought, maybe malware or a virus. So I ran CCleaner, Malware Bytes, TrendMicro Housecall, and Kaspersky. All Clean.

At this point, I'm at a loss, so I thought I'd ask ya'll if anyone knew what might be causing it. It does not do it daily. Maybe every other day, and it doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing when it happens.
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:51 am

by 1-C on Mon Sep 22, 2014 6:51 pm
Guest,

Have you checked the memory or at least the event viewer? Hopefully it's not the CPU in your computer. May also be the BIOS, could be it's not the latest/newest one and may need to be updated, another problem to check is the power supply itself (I know a year ago last May my computer had a series of restarts and even would shut down a few times. The last time I knew it was bad … shut down completely and wouldn't start up again and I had to send it to get fixed. Was the power supply unit, fortunately it was still under warranty :smileup: ).

Here's a few places you can at least check a few of those:

http://www.memtest.org/

Event Viewer, microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504

Doesn't seem to be due to any nasty viruses, as you already checked for those!
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:51 am

by Slim on Mon Sep 22, 2014 7:04 pm
I tend to agree with 1-C's suggestion.

1. Power supply getting flaky.
2. CPU overheating (you might hear the fan changing to higher speed if this is the problem)
3. Memory cards getting flaky, or need reseating if loose. (Try removing and re-inserting them, if you can)
4. Loose power connector

A common cause is overheat ... usually preceded by the fan shifting to high speed. If you have a quite old computer, the fan might have died (easy to diagnose or fix), or the thermal paste between the CPU and the aluminum cooling fins might have dried out. The "fix" is pretty easy, but I suggest not doing the latter if you are not comfortable with removing the cooling fins, and cleaning the inside surface of the fins and CPU.

I had something similar happen, after installing a new virus/malware software package. Was able to diagnose the problem by rebooting in "Safe Mode", and watching where the computer stalled. Fixed the problem by reinstalling an old backup.

(I hope you make regular backups, just in case...)
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:52 am

by BigA on Mon Sep 22, 2014 7:14 pm
The places in the case, such as those under the front bezel and on the back where air is drawn is or the fans themselves could be dirty. I usually use a can of compressed air to blow them out. After time they clog up with normal dirt and lint, as well as pet hair if you have animals
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:52 am

by Guest on Tue Sep 23, 2014 9:07 am
Thank you all for your answers. I checked the memory, and it was fine, but Event Viewer showed the 3rd scenario in the link posted. I think I'll probably be taking it to the shop to have it looked over. I'm not comfortable messing around inside of it other than to clean it.
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:53 am

by CelticDragon on Tue Sep 23, 2014 2:31 pm
Guest, before you do, I could ask my tech friend about this and double-check that theory if you wish


by CelticDragon on Wed Sep 24, 2014 7:25 am
Guest, I talked with 'Rager (my tech friend), and it might be some kind of heavy-duty virus causing this-something that might not have been caught by the programs (ghost virus)
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:54 am

by Guest on Wed Sep 24, 2014 5:31 pm
Slim wrote:
I tend to agree with 1-C's suggestion.

1. Power supply getting flaky.
2. CPU overheating (you might hear the fan changing to higher speed if this is the problem)
3. Memory cards getting flaky, or need reseating if loose. (Try removing and re-inserting them, if you can)
4. Loose power connector

A common cause is overheat ... usually preceded by the fan shifting to high speed. If you have a quite old computer, the fan might have died (easy to diagnose or fix), or the thermal paste between the CPU and the aluminum cooling fins might have dried out. The "fix" is pretty easy, but I suggest not doing the latter if you are not comfortable with removing the cooling fins, and cleaning the inside surface of the fins and CPU.

I had something similar happen, after installing a new virus/malware software package. Was able to diagnose the problem by rebooting in "Safe Mode", and watching where the computer stalled. Fixed the problem by reinstalling an old backup.

(I hope you make regular backups, just in case...)

Slim - what do you use for a backup strategy? I have 3 machines on my network.. two windows and 1 linux (4 if you count my wife's laptop). What I like to do is use SyncToy to create backups of all my important windows directories on a 2 TB drive attached as a NAS device. And I create a backup of my linux files and use winSCP to copy them to my NAS.
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:54 am

by Slim on Wed Sep 24, 2014 7:08 pm
Windows:
Moderately frequent backup of critical & semicritical data to a different partition on main drive, with Cobian Backup.

Monthly (or more frequent) full backup to external drive with AOEMI Backerupper.

When I actually conducted business on one of my machines, I made full data backups almost nightly, with differential backups (or version control backups) during the day.
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:54 am

by Guest on Wed Sep 24, 2014 7:20 pm
Thanks, CD. I'm almost torn between trying a 3rd scan just to completely rule that out and just taking it to the shop and letting them deal with it, whatever it is lol.

Thankfully, I do back up fairly often (loads of Poser content I don't want to lose) .
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Ahr'lhonaema ihirer hotaessraei hwiunaier iarr'voi ortaihkhevha na sienov!
It is cowardice to be reluctant to take up the sword for a just cause!

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Tamianth
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Re: Random Restarts

Post by Tamianth » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:55 am

by Slim on Wed Sep 24, 2014 7:31 pm
Strange -

Some time after reading Willow's earlier post a couple of nights ago, My computer crashed ... then rebooted itself, but worked VERY slowly. Further investigation showed a "rogue" Internet Explorer process, sucking up 99% of CPU cycles, and depositing tons of spam in one of my folders.

I do not think I got the malware here, but may have picked it up at a programming site I was visiting that night.

Several hours of unrewarding trial and error work to recover eventually forced me to make a complete restore from a previous full backup.

So, Willow ... if you know how to use the "Task Manager", take a look to see what programs and processes are running. Do you recognize all of them? If you see a program or process is using up a LOT of your CPU cycles, or eating a lot of memory, kill that process and see if it helps. (Killing a process will not erase files or damage your computer ... at worst, it will shut down).

If that does not help, I guess a visit to a local computer shop is in order.
Oh ... if somebody calls to tell you they will fix your computer ... you know what to do! :tngraz:
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