Why does my computer restart by itself randomly?
Sometimes my computer just suddenly restarts on its own with no warning. I lose whatever I was working on. It doesn't show an error message, it just goes black and reboots. Is this a virus? A hardware problem? Could it be overheating? How do I figure out what's causing the random restarts?
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Before you do anything drastic, try booting into Safe Mode (tap F8 when the computer starts up). If the problem goes away in Safe Mode it's a software or driver issue, not hardware. That one trick narrows down half of all PC problems.
5 Answers
Before you do anything drastic, try booting into Safe Mode (tap F8 when the computer starts up). If the problem goes away in Safe Mode it's a software or driver issue, not hardware. That one trick narrows down half of all PC problems.
Newegg is your friend for parts. Way cheaper than Best Buy or CompUSA and the customer reviews actually help you avoid junk. Just watch out for shipping on heavy stuff like CRT monitors. Read the reviews before you buy ANYTHING.
I'd post this on the Tom's Hardware or AnandTech forums with your full system specs — CPU, RAM, motherboard, the works. People can't really help without knowing what you've got. The more detail you give, the better the answers.
I always tell people: buy a UPS battery backup. A $40 one will protect your PC from power surges and brownouts that slowly kill your hardware. Lost a motherboard to a thunderstorm once. Never again.
The best resource for this kind of thing is Tom's Hardware forums. Someone has almost certainly had your exact problem and posted a solution. The community there is really knowledgeable and helpful.
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