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Random reboots
I am running a Dell GX300 with 512 meg ram Windows XP pro, IE 7 and the latest Flash player and Java. For some time now I have been experiencing random reboots of my system. It only occurs while on the internet. I have never had the problem while using any of the software loaded on my machine such as Office, Roxio Media Creator or others. I t can happen shortly after opening IE and clicking a link or may not happen for 30 minuets or more. I can be surfing and the next thing I know I click a link and bam the computer reboots. I have kept everything updated to my knowledge and installed the latest drivers for my hardware I can find. It seems as though it is related to flash player of java but not sure. I know that this morning I was checking out the new map system the Weather Channel had switched to and my computer rebooted 3 times while doing this. I was trying to adjust the trasparency and zoom the map when the reboots occurred. I have tried numerous things to fix this problem such as moving some of my PCI based cards to different slots, to no avail. I have also checked the system board for swollen capacitors which I've run into before on some IBM machines. None swollen I could find. Sure hope someone can help here before I blow this thing away and reload everything AGAIN.
- Maybe someone else will be able to give you some insight. I don't know what to tell you to do from here if you're certain your system is clean of viruses and spyware.
I know that some users advocate a clean reinstall of Windows every once in a while. Drastic measure, but from some of the articles I read, random reboots can be caused by an instability in the OS. Perhaps another user will jump in and be able to help you out. - I ran antivirus (Trend Micro) adaware and spybot. Adaware and spybot in
safe mode. Antivirus would not run safe mode. Everyone of them found some
spyware etc and cleaned them. All were considered low risk but I removed
them anyway. As soon as I finished running these and removing what they
found I went right to the Weather.com site and tried out the new
interactive map again. Wham bam reboot city. there is no blue screen no
error to report, nothing. Just click to change the transparancy setting
or zoom the map and bam reboot. I tried it several times and rebooted
everytime. In fact once it rebooted just loading the page.I tried unchecking auto reboot when Windows stops unexpectedly,
then I went right to Weather.com and tried the new map system they have
there. Tried to Zoom the map then BAM it was reboot city again
I also ran Prime 95 torture test for 7+ hours on my PC as suggested by a group
member to test memory and processor. No problems or errors were detected. - Ok thanks for the help. It appears that the is a link to the reboots and Flash Player. I go to www.weather.com and try to use the new interactive map which is done with Flash and it reboots everytime. It never did reboot with the old radar map they had been using on the site.
txtchr
274 Posts
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Posted February 25th, 2007 17:00
Since you seem to have checked out your hardware and software issues, have you scanned your machine for viruses and spyware/adware? Sometimes the presence of a virus or a spyware program will cause your system to do this. I'm particularly suspicious due to the fact that you indicate this only occurs when you are connected to the internet.
Make sure your virus definitions are up to date, then run a complete scan of your system. Next run scans using Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware. If you're still having problems, you may have to go over to the HiJackThis board for more help.
Edit: In case you need them, here are the links for Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware SE Personal (freeware).
Message Edited by txtchr on 02-25-2007 01:48 PM
Message Edited by txtchr on 02-25-2007 01:50 PM