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Random computer shutdown

flo-ra
edited February 2008 in General
I'm hoping someone could help me out here...

My new computer (bought it about 4 months ago) keeps shutting down or restarting by itself. It doesn't say "Please wait for Windows to shut down" or anything... the screen just goes black and the computer restarts. It's happened about 3 times now... not on a regular basis, but a few times within the same day.

Does anyone know what the problem is? :confused:

Comments

  • illicit
    edited February 2008
    1) where do you keep it? on the carpet? is it surrounded by other objects, could be due to it over heating therefore turning it off before your computer fries itself

    2) loose power plug (either wall outlet or on the power cable to your computer )

    3) possibly because of a virus, haven't seen it happen often but here's a free online scan you can run in case the virus has already bypassed the anti virus you have on your computer currently

    http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/

    4) something wrong with the motherboard/powersupply other hardware, which might be causing the problem. good thing you're still 4months in and you have limited warranty.
  • vonnie
    edited February 2008
    This might sound kinda stupid but there was one time my foot kept hitting the power off button. And I couldn't figure out why my computer was shutting down. Haha...

    Hope you weren't as dense at me that time ^___^;;;;
  • Morro
    edited February 2008
    There are viruses that do that. Try illicit's link, or Trend Micro's Housecall.
  • JayDub
    edited February 2008
    Or if you know a bit about computers

    Try HijackThis.
  • 中国&#30
    edited February 2008
    The computer ought to be covered by some warranty if the problem is hardware related since it is quite new. If it's the operating system with loaded sofware then an O/S reinstall might be required but let's leave this option as a last resort.

    I hope that you get a qualified person such a technician to physically troubleshoot your computer because the average computer user rarely solves this type of problem on their own.

    Asking for help on this forum is okay but not the best to start off with.
  • Ether
    edited February 2008
    I've had this happen to my computer before.

    In my case, the problem was due to temperature - If it's in a warm place, it can overheat. If a fan isn't working, it can overheat. Also, check to make sure there isn't too much dust inside the case.

    I just used one of those air-in-a-can blowers on the internals and took the panels off the sides of the case and the thing hasn't overheated since. Sure it's a fire hazard and an electrocution hazard.. but that's a small price to pay for a working computer.. right?
  • EricJ
    edited February 2008
    Yeah, if it's still under warranty and all you might as well get someone to look at it for you.

    Although, if you want to figure out what the cause may be on your own, you could go int control panel ->System ->Advanced -> Startup and recovery ->System Failure and disable "Automatically restart", and depending on the cause of the problem, you may get a vaguely helpful Blue-Screen-Of-Death the next time it happens, which may or may not contain any useful information you could Google up!
  • Broken Lizard
    edited February 2008
    try getting rid of the porn, that helps sometimes.
  • vonnie
    edited February 2008
    Triple;22530 said:
    try getting rid of the porn, that helps sometimes.
    HAHA. Maybe you should do that to yours first ^___^
  • Shi2
    edited February 2008
    I have had a similar problem and the source of the problem was a loose USB connector connected to my headphones.

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