My wife's Dell running XP keeps rebooting for no reason

[MrScorpio]

Why?

Anybody?

[Beware the Beast Man]

1. #1- Dell sucks.

#2- refer to #1

As a former Dell owner, I know.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. Well, anything you don't build yourself sucks.

Unless you shell out a fortune.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. Is there a physical reset button the machine itself?

If so, you might be accidentally pushing it.

[KG]

4. i'll beat the Mac fanboyz to it and say it - 'she shoulda bought a mac!'

:eyes:

[mcscajun]

5. Don't have any answers, but I can't agree with the first one, either.

I just retired a five-year old Dell that was running WinME in favor of a brand-new Dell 4700 running XP.

How many times has it rebooted since this morning?

[jobycom]

24. Agree on Dell. They are solid for their price range.

I've had more problems with off-the-shelf brands, at least in the below-$800 range.

[Texasgal]

6. *ahem*

Dell is a four letter word... that's all I can say... :P

[GOPisEvil]

7. How old is it? Could it be the power supply?

[MrScorpio]

12. Three years old

Not old at all

[mcscajun]

13. I'm thinking that as well...

...might be a drop-off/short causing the problem.

[catzies]

8. Some viruses can make that happen. Have you cleaned it?

Scrub it for bots, viruses, adware, trojans, etc. if you haven't already.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

9. power supply may be going bad

or the cpu may be getting to hot which my trigger the computer to shutdown.

i would make sure that it is getting good air circulation and make sure nothing is impeding the air flow to the fans inside the case (dust build up etc...)

[MrScorpio]

15. I think that that might be it

I'll put another fan on it

[SheepyMcSheepster]

27. yeah,

even if you can just open the side of the computer case and stick a regular box fan up against it to see if it makes any difference.

[fairfaxvadem]

10. that happened at my old office to some folks.

Their pc's had gotten infected and just kept rebooting. It was a hassle and kept the tech guys busy for a few days.

Just a suggestion.

[Nite Owl]

11. Have you done the

usual virus, spybot scans?

For some reason my Dell desktop just suddenly shuts down, doesn't reboot, just snaps off.

[mcscajun]

17. Also check all the cables, connections, etc.

Might be that something's gotten pulled, kicked, or otherise come loose.

[Nite Owl]

25. It turns right back on

though last night I got the message, 'the system has recovered from a serious error' and the desktop was very slow to load. It seems fine, not slow and all of a sudden it snaps off. I called Dell a couple of days ago and the tech guy said I may have kicked the cpu accidentally but a couple of times I wasn't even sitting at the computer when it happened. My son thinks it could be the power supply.

[Nite Owl]

26. It turns right back on

though last night I got the message, 'the system has recovered from a serious error' and the desktop was very slow to load. It seems fine, not slow and all of a sudden it snaps off. I called Dell a couple of days ago and the tech guy said I may have kicked the cpu accidentally but a couple of times I wasn't even sitting at the computer when it happened. My son thinks it could be the power supply.

[mcscajun]

29. It really does sound like the power supply.

Ugh.

[Nite Owl]

30. I'll call them again

I have the extended three year in home warranty. It's two and half yrs old so they better do it. Thanks

[EFerrari]

14. Spyware?

My mom has one, and she got Dell's help with it, downloaded anti apyware software. No more problems.

[MrScorpio]

16. we've got all of that

[Dogmudgeon]

18. Mine used to do that

Only I was running Win2k.

The electrical system was being stressed out by multiple washers, dryers and air conditioners. When the voltage swung low, the computer would re-boot, then go through the tedious process of running SCANDISK.

I got a better surge suppressor and uninterruptable power supply. Now it only happens about one-tenth as much.

--p!

[MuseRider]

LapTop?

Mine does that when it gets too hot. I have the marks on my thigh to prove that. I bought one of those fans that fit underneath it and it works really well. If it is a laptop try that, it was not very expensive and it solved my problem.

BTW, I have used a lot of different computers and this Dell I have is the best of them all. Even better than the Mac, IMO, that my husband uses. My luck with their customer support has been good too. Just my little plug, I know who they support but the product has been very good for me.

[meegbear]

19. Try getting in via Windows Safe Mode - F8 during boot up ....

before the Windows XP screen appears, then do a virus scan. You DO have anti-virus software on there. Right?

[LibertyorDeath]

20. Well

1) Virus scan that puppy
2) Power supply gone bad
3) Memory gone bad
4) Capacitor(s) on Motherboard gone bad NOT Very likely
5) When you give money to Dell you are giving money to Bush

This is what she gets for investing in bush. :)

[kick-ass-bob]

21. might be getting too hot...

meaning (I think) the power supply could be bad.

[jobycom]

23. Good point. Or the CPU fan. Check that first

Just power up and see if the CPU fan is spinning. Try stopping it with your finger by pressing down in the center of the fan (not the blades--they hurt!). It should stop, but not too easily. If it stops with no resistance, change that first.

[GreenPartyVoter]

28. That was my first thought too

[jobycom]

22. Check in this order:

Trojans, viruses, memory (Take out one simm, run for a while like that. If it keeps happening, replace simm and remove other), power supply (hard to check without replacing). After that, it gets serious.

My daughter's computer kept rebooting like that. I replaced the power supply, and it worked for a week, and started again, until finally the power supply would flicker on, then off immediately. It turned out to be the Main Board.

Good luck. If you can run it long enough to run Spybot and a very current virus scan, do so. If not, restore XP to a point before it began doing this, and then try to run the scans.

Just some suggestions. It could be something else entirely.

[maveric]

31. Had the same problem. Did a system restore and it went away.

[DS1]

32. Oh, I'm sure there's a reason

The trick is finding it :hi:

[Maestro]

33. Bad memory

Download memtest86. Google it. If it is not memory problems then make sure the PSU isn't failing or that the computer isn't overheating for some reason. This doesn't sound like an XP problem. It sounds like a Dell hardware problem.

[Nite Owl]

34. I googled and found this

http://channels.lockergnome.com/it/archives/20050302_learn_how_to_diagnose_power_supply_problems.phtml

Rebooting Problems
One main problem you may face with an ailing power supply is that it may reboot the computer without any warning. All information is lost and it seems as though this happens at the worst possible time.

Booting errors when the computer first starts up may be another indicator of this component going on the blink.

It gives you a whole thing on how to test the Power Supply which seems to be something for the experts!