Name of helpful Gaian removed to protect privacy!
Saw your journal, figured I'd help out a bit. ^^
There's a few causes for "random" restarting of your computer, the most common being that the computer is overheating.
Do you have
- The tower located in a confined space
- The tower covered with something that may constrict wind flow
- The tower covered with something that will hold heat (i.e. blanket)
- The heat up too high in the house
- A lack of cooling equipment inside the tower (be it fans, water cooling, etc)
Another cause of random restarts are certain viruses. I did read that you scanned for all types of badware and nothing came up, but no single program is perfection.
3nodding What programs did you use? Did you run them in safe mode?
Also some miscellaneous questions
Does the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" flash before rebooting?
Is your computer connected to a wireless network?
Yet a third cause (albeit more rarely) is power supply failure. We'll cross that bridge should we come upon it, however.
3nodding Thank you so much for you help! ^_^
I am beginning to think it could indeed be some sort of over heating. I have noticed that if I shut off for a while (say overnight), then the first time I boot it up the next morning, it'll run for several hours just fine. Then it'll start doing the whole random restart thing.
However, I've also noticed that if I have an active program running (like my virus scanner or even Windows Media Player), that that also seems to keep it from restarting.... so that makes me think it may not be over heating-related. *Confused*
As for the programs I used to scan with, I used Symantec Anti-Virus Coporate Edition, Spybot S&D, and Adaware. I also ran a MicroTrend HouseCall scan from their website. I then went on to defrag and elsewise clean up my HD of clutter using some of Windows maintenance programs.
As for the Blue Screen of Death, I don't ever get that. It'll just shut right down with no warning , blue screen, nor error message of anykind, then restart right back up. And I haven't tried anything from SafeMode yet. I was hoping whatever the issue was could be resolved without having to go in there since I'm woefully unfamiliar with exactly how to work it and all.
As for the positioning of my tower, it's on the bottom most level of my computer desk and appears to have plenty of ventilation room. There's never anything on directly top of it and one rubbermaid type container full of software CDs beside it (but with some space between them). No blankets or anything like that around either. And the room it's in (my bedroom) is actually the coldest room in the house, so I'm sure it's not from the temperature of the room.
We did recently (about a week or so before the problems started) open it up and clean the dust out and as far as I can tell all the internal fans are working as they should be.
I don't know how I can test my power supply though... do you know of a way? 'Cause I had thought of that as well.
I hope this info may help. I am still super stumped about this.
sad 
