Damn, my computer keeps crashing (several times a day at the moment).
It’s a desktop, running Windows XP. The crashing, is that it just instantly restarts - straight to black screen.
I’m pretty damn sure I’m 100% clean and virus-free now.
Anything else I should check out before taking it to get fixed? I thought it might be the fan or something. Ideas?
Brian
Sounds like it could be overheating. Mine used to do that occasionally too, so I popped the sides off the case to let the air circulate through it. It’s an ugly bugger of a kludge, but it’s done the job.
There are other possibilities, like hardware dying. Any chance you could tell us what you’re doing the next couple of times it crashes?
Probably overheating. Clean the dust out and, if possible, lube / oil up all your fans.
It could also be that your HDD requires a defrag.
Good luck!
See above + do a systems checkup using a utilities program. Could be some registry issues. Also do a full Spybot + Adaware sweep.
Also try going back to a system restore point.
Could also be bad RAM. How old is this 'puter?
The computer must be about 2 years old now. Less than that, I guess.
I’ve done all the AdAware, Spybot stuff.
Defrag - hasn’t worked, the last few times I’ve tried. i should try again.
Opening it up and cleaning it? - Do I just pop off the screws at the back then? 
As for what I’m doing when it crashes - surfing the net, playing music.
Brian
Yeah, I’d check the RAM. Pop the screws in the back. Air out the case, clean out the dust balls. Check that the fans are running (CPU and Case fan) and let it run. My bet is the RAM stick went bad. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to pop that out and put it into another slot would you?
If you take it to 3C it costs $300 for a check up. My computer wouldn’t start one morning, so I took it there. They called me the next day and said that it was ready. There was no extra charge and it works fine now. The 3C guy said some connection inside was loose and to blame.
He did warn me when I dropped off my computer there that it could cost a lot to fix it. Luckily in my case there was just a loose connection.
Yeah, that’s a good point. Check your power and other internal connections. Get a compressed can of air as well and go to work. Make sure to unplug the thing first. 
Thanks for your suggestions. It was working fine for several days, and just recently got real bad again.
Opened it up, and checked the fans, cleaned it and everything.
Now just wondering, is there some way with XP, you can check the temperature? It says the temperature when you restart (was 57c, which I suspect is high), but anything, you can check it regularly?
Brian
Press ALT-CTRL-DEL to bring up the system manager. You should then be able to check your CPU and case temperatures.
If you can’t, your motherboard should have came with a CD on which is a PC probe of sorts to inspect, among other things, your CPU and case temperatures (depending on your motherboard maker). You can also check out the rpm’s of your CPU fan.
Also, inspect the physical location of your computer case. If it’s backside or left side is against a wall, pull it away from there about a forearm’s length.
If you’re hot, you’re computer’s probably triple hot. Turn on the AC.
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]Thanks for your suggestions. It was working fine for several days, and just recently got real bad again.
Opened it up, and checked the fans, cleaned it and everything.
Now just wondering, is there some way with XP, you can check the temperature? It says the temperature when you restart (was 57c, which I suspect is high), but anything, you can check it regularly?
Brian[/quote]
Looks like it’s within limits:
heatsink-guide.com/maxtemp.htm
BTW, one thing you could do to see if it’s a virus is to boot Knoppix, play around a while, and see if the machine shuts down. Since Knoppix won’t be running any virii, if the machine shuts down it’s a good indication that it’s thermal or otherwise hardware-related.
Where are you located, Brian? I’m sure one of us know-it-alls wouldn’t mind servicing your pc for you.
Also, take note if you’re doing anything in particular when your computer reboots. You can use MBM http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ to monitor your temps.
My computer used to instantly reboot whenever I started Word. But I fixed it after following some advice on an English web site and then figuring it out on my Chinese Windows. So here’s how to do it:
Go to 控制台…
Click on 系統 and you’ll be inside the 系統內容…
Choose 進階…
Go to the third choice, which is 啟動及修復…and click on 設定…
Once you’re inside the 設定, you’ll see a category called ‘系統失敗’
Under 系統失敗 are three boxes, the last of which is called…
自動重新啟動…
All you have to do is ‘uncheck’ 自動重新啟動 and that should do the trick.
My computer hasn’t bothered me since.
Well, bloody hell. I thought I’d destroyed my computer somehow while moving it today.
I have a Shuttle SN41G2B, and it started spontaneously rebooting about every five minutes. I had taken out the hard drive because I was just going to run Morphix off CD, and didn’t want or need a hard drive in the machine. I thought I must have fried my motherboard while taking out the drive or moving the machine today.
Turns out, the SN41G2’s motherboard requires a hard drive to be attached, otherwise it does weird things, like rebooting every five minutes.
I had similar problems with it when I first bought it – I wanted to put two HD’s in, but it wouldn’t boot when I attached a second drive, either as a slave on IDE1 or as a slave on IDE2. The machine seems to work only when it has one and only one HD, set up as master on IDE1, and an optional CD or DVD type drive, set up as master on IDE2.
I can live with it, especially since I can attach a drive via USB, but I find it bizarre and a bit annoying. Oh well.