What do you do.. when your computer starts restarting by itself?

Answer 1

Windows XP Shut Down and Automatic Reboot Problems

Per:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/russel_02may13.mspx

turn off the automatic reboot so you can actually see the error

To change the recovery settings to disable automatic rebooting:

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box.
4. Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK the necessary number of times.
5. Restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

Now when you go to shut down and a fatal error occurs, you'll at least see it and it won't cause an automatic reboot. You still have to sort out what's causing the problem, but that gets us to the next section quite nicely.

Answer 2

Could be a few things, start with easiest.

Usually it is a card or memory chip that is unseated partially, which is caused from the pc heating up and cooling down, over time this can cause your cards and memory to partially unseat, and therefore make your computer do odd things like reboot itself.

While you have your computer open, the other thing it can be is just plain old dust, bunch of dust on the components and cards can cause this, along with over heating. Get a good ol can of air and blow everything out.

If after reseating the cards, blowing out the dust, you still have issue, then the next step is to check for virus/spyware. Below is a list I recomend all freeware, and I use myself.

Now, if after all of that does not work, then you probably have a bad power supply or possibly a card/memory. I would start with power supply. Pending on the age of your computer, you may opt to just rebuild a new one. I highly recomend building your own computer for the recylce factor that you can upgrade to a newer computer much more easily as typically named brand computers have components that will not fit into a typical PC case.




Anti Virus
http://www.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus-free-edition/lng/us/tpl/tpl01 - AVG Anti Virus
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ - Trend Micro free online virus and spyware scan

Protection from BHO (browser helper objects) spyware, malware
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html - Spywareblaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html - Spywareguard

Scanning for spyware and removing
http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php - Ad-Aware SE Personal
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.html - Spybot search and destroy
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx - Windows Defender Spyware protection for free

Answer 3

You may have a virus or a Trojan,i once had what is called a full moon Trojan and my computer would shut down and come back on at the oddest times.

Answer 4

2 things... it is a heat issue ( cpu or graphics card)
or you have a virus or bad spyware

get it checked

Answer 5

Call an Exorcist NOW!