Strange computer behavior - help!

cockroachfarm

cockroachfarm

Joined
Jan 6, 2001
Messages
4,399
OK, here’s a new one for my books: for the past week or so, my computer reboots when I start scrolling up or down on a website I’m viewing or in a forum I’m participating in! WTF??? This is happening on a fairly regular, if erratic, basis and it doesn’t matter whether I am using IE or Firefox. I have checked everything in sight with AVG, I have tried various restore points from a month ago, I have uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of programs I have added since this began. I’m stumped. Anyone have any idea what might be causing this strange behavior? :confused:
 
It may be your memory. Get a program called memtest http://www.memtest.org/ you can use the version that makes a floppy boot disk or a cd boot disk. Stick it in the appropriate drive and let it boot and scan and see if it finds any errors. If it does not I would have to guess a virus/spyware issue.
 
.........^%$%$#@!(*&^&^%$:mad:

When I finished posting the above, I hit the "Back" button.....and it rebooted again! WTF!!!! :mad:

Thanks - I'll try memtest. BTW, when this cr*p started, I ran complete full-system scans in AVG, AdAware, SpyBot, and CCleaner. Clean bill of health everywhere - and it still crashes.

It always happens when I click or scroll something - so...could the mouse affect a browser in this way?
 
:mad: ...just crashed completely as I was scrolling through the memtest "History" page! Didn't even reboot on its own as it did previously, this time I had to hit the Reboot Switch on the box.
 
One problem with memtest is it can't distinguish between bad memory and a bad CPU. If you change the memory and it still does it, it's the CPU. That was my problem. It's likely to be heat-related. I was able to keep my old motherboard working fairly well for a long time by cooling the heck out of it. I ran it for months with the side off the case and a big fan blowing right on the motherboard....

It's more likely to be a memory chip, though, and that's pretty cheap to replace.
 
I had a problem with constant shutdowns. Some times it would say that it had recovered from a serious error. When I checked the fans 4 out of 5 were not working. Only cost about $60 to replace all of the fans. Check your pc for dust or bad fans, try what Cougar did if that is the problem until you get new fans.
 
Heat is a major culprit of random reboots. If you installed new software or hardware, sometimes that could be at fault also. Updating drivers could help also. Good luck.
 
Go into Control Panel. Click Administrative Tools, then click Event Viewer.
Start scrolling through the Application and System trees looking for Red Xs.

Double click those most recent ones and see what program is barfing and why. Most often, reboots are application hangs. Update the application if applicable. It may also be interrelated programs such as your browser and networking tools.

As noted, it can also be overheats or hardware failures, but this is a good place to isolate software problems.
 
Sounds to me like your registry may be hosed , I would fix it to run chkdisk after a reboot , sometimes that can repair errors , or if you have a Win XP/win whatever disk you can do a repair that way as well.
Most crashes involving memory I have seen went thru the BSOD first.
 
Overheating is my first guess. Next time it does it, as it reboots, go into the BIOS, and check the CPU temperature and the fan speed. Next choice, is something loose. Remove and re-seat memory, CPU, and all connectors. Finally, bad memory or CPU.

Phatch, Event Viewer is generally no god with this type of fault as it reboots before it can register the 'Event'.

Rebeltf. Not the registry, it doesn't cause reboots. I have never seen a Fatal Error Exception screen (BSOD) on XP.
 
Just for the heck of it, borrow a mouse from someone and see if the problem goes away or continues. (Prefereably try a ps/2 mouse)
Remember not to hot swap anything in a ps/2 port while the computer is running, that could burn the port out. Shut down first, then swap.
Believe it or not, the mouse could be your problem.
 
Update: it was the power supply!

My friend who was trying to fix this computer for me found this out quite by accident - when it caught fire on his workbench! :D :D :D (Better there than my office!;) ) Yes, he would have eventually discovered the problem (he is in charge of fixing all the computers for one of Canada's major television networks) but this incident saved him some diagnostic time! :D Thanks for all the suggestions here.
 
If I'd been on the board when this was posted, that would have been my second culprit after heat. If your power supply was getting flaky to the point where it actually caught fire(!!!!), I'd think seriously about a new mobo as well. That is a seriously messed up PS, don't be at all surprised if your machine is still quirky due to other damage.
 
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