My computer doesn't want to work!

[thatcrazycajun]

Okay, this is really starting to get on my nerves. Bad enough that the WinBlows box I use at work has trouble starting up most every morning now, getting partway through the bootup process two or three times and then starting over before finally getting me to the desktop. But now it's abruptly rebooting on me for no apparent reason—no warning, no frozen screen or Blue Screen of Death, no error dialogs. One moment I'm working away happily and the next, it's rebooting. Nothing untoward I can find in what I was doing at the time; didn't even have that many apps running aside from Firefox. Our computer tech-support contractor has refreshed the BIOS once already and it doesn't seem to help. This has happened twice today already and I'm just damned lucky I didn't have a memory buffer full of hours' worth of unsaved work at the time. Clues, anyone?

Comments

[wolfette]

Umm, this is a long shot - but I suppose you've made sure you're not accidentally hitting the "re-boot" button with your keyboard as you type?

That was happening to a cow-orker. IT did everything under it's power to identify - even to replicate - the fault. Nada. Replaced the hard drive several times - till I watched her start typing and shove the keyboard hard against the base station.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Didn't even have fingers on the keyboard either time. Yes, I'm sure.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

It sounds as if the CPU may be overheating. Is there a thermal monitor program on the machine, or are you allowed to install one? (And do you know what sort of machine it is; that is, is it a big-name box with a model number you can look stuff up for, or is it a white box that someone built?)

If it's not overheating, some piece of software sounds like it's being nasty. Assuming it's not a virus or other malware (there is current anti-everything on there, right?), then there may be conflicts between some installed packages, or else one may have gone bad.

Tech support ought to have checked all these things out already, but if not, you might discuss them with hir and see what gives.

Good luck!

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

The computer is a black box custom-built for us by a local vendor. I should be able to install a thermal monitor program. And yes, I do have antivirus software (Windows and Norton both).

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

I just installed a freeware app called SpeedFan which reports the temperature currently at 40 degrees Celsius. Can you tell me whether that is in an acceptable range and at what point I should look for overheating?

[wolfette]

I'm no expert, but I'd say that is rather hot! *I* would be falling over at that heat!