AKICIF: Computer keeps rebooting

[carbonel]

My computer is rebooting itself every few minutes, spontaneously. It seems to be a warm reboot -- it doesn't power down. It's not related to starting a specific piece of software, and it's not a mandated boot after an update, since there's no warning.

Any ideas what might be causing it? Or what I might try to stop it? This just started happening at (best I can tell) around 3 a.m. last night.

Comments

[guppiecat]

I'm not a Windows expert, but I suggest booting into Safe Mode (hold down F5 during bootup, I believe) and see if it reboots there. If not, run a virus/malware scan.

[yarram.livejournal.com]

The first thing that pops into mind is to check your fans - CPU, Power, etc. Overheating can cause some systems to suddenly power down. OTOH, that tends to be a hard shutdown rather than a quick reboot.

If you're using a Windows-flavor system, you can also check your event log and see if it reports anything relevant. (One assumes that antivirus is current and running.)

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Heat and Power are the most common reasons for this. Check all fans, clean filters, if present, etc.

Power -- bypass surge supressors, etc. see if problem improves.

The "correct" way to check is if the system board has monitors on temp/voltage that can be read to tell you if there are problems, but if the software to extract those values isn't installed, it can be a pain to get it running.

Ideally, it's fans -- that's an easy, cheap fix. Power may be power supply, which is usually not hard to replace, but it is some work. Custom power supplies can dramatically increase the cost

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i agree with peer, but have a different idea-- unplug it. let it cool down for about two hours. plug it back in, power it up, see if it keeps doing it.

if it doesn't do it immediately but after a while starts doing it again, it's a fan problem; likely a cathair in the fan problem. if it starts doing it immediately, well, probably something else.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Did you try rebooting it?

K. [ahhahahhahhhhhaaaahhhhahahahaha]

[carbonel]

Heh.

As it happens, I did. (See next message.) That seems to have killed it rather decisively.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

Exorcism.