Reboots On It's Own...help

Running XP SP2.
Celeron (R) cpu 1.80 GHz
480 mb of Ram

I have been trying to fix an old PC
my dad gave me and this issue just
started.
Thanks.

When does it reboot?

What are you doing when it reboots?

Does it reboot constantly?

Do you get any error messages?

Have you ever cleaned it out?

Seems to reboot whenever it wants.
Last night i heard it restart in the middle of the night.
Sometimes I'm on the internet sometimes not.
It does not reboot constantly.
I do not get an error message.
Yes I have cleaned it out.
I just replaced a 128mb ram with two 256mb's.
Much faster but now have this reboot issue!
I found one of those cans of air, should I try to
clean it out again?
Could it be the power supply?
I think my dad replaced it not too long ago.

Thanks for your reply.

Check your Event Viewer via Administrative Tools.

Open the System as well as Application tabs and look for red X errors that coincide with your problem. Details here:

How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP

Basic information on Event Viewer errors can be found here: EventID.Net




Also turn off the auto restart function:

How to turn off Auto Restart in XP

Right click on My Computer

Select Properties

Select the Advanced tab then the Startup & Recovery section

Select the Settings button

Uncheck "Automatically restart" and then click Apply


If this is a software problem this should give you a Blue Screen with the error message rather than restarting the computer.

Write down the error detail then use the reset button on the computer to restart.

I did turn off auto restart and the pc rebooted on it's own and
I never got a blue screen. I guess there is no software issues.
I did see some rex X's ...one for srevice control manager and a
bunch for SidebySide.
What is that??

I also noticed this error message when I unchecked
the auto restart:
If the pagefile on volume C: has an initial size of less than 0 megabytes,
then the system may not be able to create a debugging information file
if a STOP error occurs. Continue anyway? Y/N

Service Control errors are quite common and usually not fatal.

The manager was asked to start a service usually and could not for some reason depending on the service and the action involved.

SdebySide errors depend on what program was involved. If you click the error line you should get the details.

All that being said I would suspect hardware perhaps heat. See what your CPU temps look like. Here is a good tool if you have no other detection device: http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Common/standard prompt after this action.

Here are the temps I got:
Temp1 36c
Temp2 22c
HDO 43C
What it means I do not know.

Looks OK. Wasn't there a listing for CPU?