[music_man]

every once in a while my computer randomly reboots. not often. i do not mean fails. it simply restarts with no memory dump. like i manually shut it down but it does it itself. i finally saw it do it today. it logged off and restarted. hence no memory dump. update is not on automatic. what else could do this, i am guessing it is norton but i don't see where to stop that. or it could be ati install or anything. i have no idea. anyone?
 
thanks.

 

[Wired_Gargoyle]

Win 7 shouldn't reboot itself unless it's updating, which you mentioned you had turned off. My first thought was a heat issue but unless you've got some sort of monitoring program running (or perhaps it's a motherboard feature that's working with Win 7?) it's probably some program you have running alongside windows, like Norton you mentioned which is one of those nasty programs that do all sorts of illogical things without really telling you.

 

[Arainach]

If you check the system event logs (search the start menu for "event log" and look at Windows Logs->System, does it give you any indication of any failures near the time it rebooted or reasons why it might have rebooted?

 

[gustavQ]

What is your setup?
 
it's probably a problem with your PSU, it may not enough power to the system. 

 

[music_man]

well get this. i may have fixed it. the heatsink was jammed with dirt and fur. i blew it out with compressed air. than nothing. computer dead! a few hours later i decided i'd just try starting it again and lo-and-behold it boots fine. weird. probably static discharge i'd guess. anyways it is 25c cooler on the die! if heat was the issue that certainly fixed it. however, even though that was needed i am afraid the culprit of the reboots is norton. like i said, there is no failure or halt in the log. it is a regular user log off/restart. i have other apps running and i am almost positive it is not the ups so if anything does it again it must be norton. since it is weeks apart. otherwise cleaning the hsf didn't hurt save for the no boot scare.
 
it is a high end machine,well built,plenty of psu juice. so, other than the heat it is not the hardware most likely. i'll just have to wait and see if it happens again.

 

[gustavQ]

Quote:

it is a high end machine,well built,plenty of psu juice. so, other than the heat it is not the hardware most likely. i'll just have to wait and see if it happens again.

One more reason to be from the power supply unit. If it is not a good PSU. Does not matter if says 700W, or 1000W, if the 12V lines are not charge this power. But if you are already solved, better.

 

[music_man]

the psu is a ax1200. the psu is not a problem here. all the rails are above their rating on my machine.

 

[gustavQ]

Quote:

the psu is a ax1200. the psu is not a problem here. all the rails are above their rating on my machine.

Indeed, that PSU should not give any problems. Have you already do a test of the memorys? With memtest86+.

 

[music_man]

i actually junked that machine. it had all kinds of issues. i do not know exacty what caused all the problems but it was some combonation of hardware. it was not the power supply though i am sure of that. i will harvest parts from that machine so it is not a complete loss. thanks for the ideas though guys.