Computer Tips & Tricks

I have had a problem for a few months with my puter rebooting.  Well actually it had happened off and on, but not real frequently when suddenly it got worse and then my puter crashed(and when it tried to reboot some file was missing.  It went to repair shop who checked the hard drive, the RAM and the motherboard and also checked for viruses etc that could be causing the problems. They also had to do a complete reinstall of stuff from the recovery disc I had thankfully gotten around to making!! Actually I also had them add 1 Gb of RAM too since I only had 512 Mb.  They did also save some files I  said I wanted saved.

Anyway I discovered shortly after I got it home it was still rebooting. I called the shop and their prediction at that time is its one of 3 things.   They said maybe the original RAM is failing, the HD is failing OR the motherboard is failing.  I have not gotten brave enough to try yanking the original 512 Mb of RAM yet, but I just dont quite believe that is it. I also live in a very old house and wondered about the electricity. I did for some reason decide maybe it had to do with turning the computer on and off was hard on it, since the times I was most likely to have it reboot was shortly after I turned it on. So I have left it on most of the time while shutting everything else off. I did get a different surge protector, and this one has several indicator lights on it.  It was indicating line faults on the outlet I had it plugged into. I then switched it to one of the few other grounded outlets in the house and since then it does reboot occassionally but not very often.  Nothing else is used on the other outlet but will get some electrician to deal with that.

I can tell when it reboots because one of those HP programs has some file missing so if the puter has rebooted that little box shows up saying it cant start that program(something like HP organize and I never used it so dont care).  BUT it does mean I can tell for sure if the puter HAS rebooted.

So it looks like I have to try pulling the RAM(cheapest fix cuz I would still have 1 Gb of it); try a different HD and see if that solves it, or if its the mother board the repair place said to buy a new computer.  BUT I have Windows XP and dont really want to go to Vista, so am not crazy about buying a new puter until the next Windows version comes out.  I also hate spending around $75 for a new HD and then find out the HD is fine and I still have to get a different computer.

My question is if the problem is from something the line faults on the other outlet did to the puter, is it more likely to be the motherboard? Or is it still a toss up between the HD and the motherboard. The repair place said they had no idea which, of course when I talked to them I had NOT found out about the line faults on that outlet.  I hoped when i switched to another grounded outlet the puter would stop rebooting.  It still does but not very often and only once messed up a program I was working on.  I will also admit I have not bothered to load much of the software back on the puter until I find out it is up and running OK!

I held off on dealing with this cuz I was also dealing with major vehicle issues.  That is hopefully solved and I guess its time to deal with this.

Have you ever seen the computer reboot? Does it show you the blue screen of death? Does it give any messages? Obviously it is rebooting spontaneously when it is just sitting there, but was wondering if you has ever seen any messages. Another possibility is the power supply is giving out. I have had to replace those before and it solved a spontaneous reboot problem. That would be your cheapest fix, if it was the power supply.

You say the computer place checked the hard drive? There are diagnostic programs to tell you about about bad sectors, etc.

My feeling is it not as likely to be the motherboard itself. The RAM is a possibility and again there are diagnostic programs that can test all your RAM. You can go to here:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
and this bootable CD image has memory testing and hard drive testing tools. This would tell you if you had a memory or hard drive problem at least. You just make a CD of the image and then make sure your computer is set to boot first from the CD before the hard drive. We can help you with that if you don't know how to do it.

All of those things could be what is causing your problem. But I would assume (and you know what that does to a person...lol) that while at their shop they tried all new cables and run it with new ram and a new power supply....I don't know but that is what the local guy does when someone brings in a computer. He takes known to be working cables and runs the broken on. I always wondered why sometimes it would take so long to fix things and that is the reason if they truely are trying to find out what is going on.

Did they check to see that it wasn't overheating? Those fans are very cheap sometimes like under $5 and they fail.....a hot computer will shut down cool off as it is doing so  and it restarts.

If you don't have a surge protecton to plug your electonics into you really should have one.

There is a way to turn off the auto restart but I think if you pay to have someone fix it they should advise you on that. But if you take it somewhere try talking to people that are happy with the fixit guy and try someone new.

At least when you go in you can have something to suggest that he looks for since there are quite a few suggestions here.....

Good luck.

They said they checked the RAM, HD and mother board. They did not have any issue with it rebooting at all. Of course they only had it about 5 days(working on it the last one I think). I did not take in the power supply cord.  So if that is bad, that could explainy why they did not see the problem!  I was hoping it was the outlet because it was quite a while before it did reboot again, but then it did.  I have not seen the mutliple reboots like I had before though. Then sometimes shortly after I had turned everything on, it would reboot 4-5 times in a row...often with just enough time to open a program!

I guess in my mind, leaving the puter on most of the time would mean more reboots instead of less reboots but just the opposite has happened unless it has something to do with the electrical system kind of stuff.  That is why I was so suspicious about the outlet showing line faults. I have never had puter on anything less than a surger protector, although not always the top of the line ones. The one I got at Sam's club though has 3 different lights on it one if it shows red indicates line faults and the instructions with it said to call an electrician if you get that!  I have not done that yet since I bypassed it with a long heavy duty extension cord and the outlet it is now plugged into shows it is fine.

The only reason for not calling electrician immediately is wanting to get things more organized here and do some planning. I want to see about getting more grounded outlets for the newer TV I got and would really like to see if I could get one of the 2 outlets right by the puter to be changed to grounded outlets.  I have not used either of those for the puter because I don't want to use a non grounded outlet by using one of those litte converter plugs( in case my terminolgy seems lackign its because what I know about electricity would fit on the head of a pin with room left over.) I know water and electicity do NOT mix, don't touch live wires and although in college I did learn how to rewire a lamp the only time I ever tried it(was a 3 bulb floor lamp with  nasty bends to try to feed the wires through(never suceeded on that).  The most important thing for me, is its better not to deal with anything more complicated than changing a light bulb!

My very first puter was decades ago now(I know this dates me)....WHEN sister and I both ended up with commodore 64's!!  For those born AFTER that, these computers were sold at places like Prange's, Target, probably Walmart but we did not have a Walmart then!!  That trusty puter only ran by using the 5 1/4" floppy drive. THEY did not have a hard drive!!  Even that one went on a surge protector. Actually I seem to recall that computer needed a replacement power supply too. 

I am going to call the repair place I think today and ask about the power supply cord!  I will also tell them about the line fault on that outlet and see if that indicates where the problems is coming in.  It really is not rebooting very often but it did scramble one software program which I now have to probably uninstall and then reinstall!

Actually when it reboots there is not any blue screen or nasty messages, just suddenly it reboots.  When it was doing it a LOT before they had to reinstall everything, sometimes it would reboot and somehow that windows music would not play but it would basically start up and within a few minutes do it all over.  What it is doing now is only single reboots and not that often.