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Thread: Strange happenings with computer

  1. #1
    Senior Member
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    Unhappy Strange happenings with computer

    For the last week my computer has been rebooting its self around 10:30 at night.
    I have a pentium 3 550mhz processer am running windozes 98se my virus scanner is avg and is updated every 2 days. I have run a trojan scanner, swat it and adaware. I also have norton utilities which I run on a regular schedule. Nothing has been found by these programs and I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if so what they did to correct it. My firewall does not show any strange programs trying to access the net nor any unusual hits.
    What happens is it shuts down everything the monitor goes black the power shuts off and then it goes through the start up mode and right now I am the only one using this computer I havent played with any of the settings or downloaded anything.
    Any ideas on how to stop this because it is driving me nuts.
    No good deed goes unpunished.

  2. #2
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    Some mobos if they sense components such as the cpu are overheating will shut themselves down. Dont know if this is necessarily is your case but its always nice to go on a little cleaning frenzy with your computer. The first thing i would reccommend doing is checking out all of your fans. If they are caked with lint dust take a vaccuum to them first and then wipe them down with a tissue (i take my fans out of the case and use a damp tissue to clean em) Do the same thing for your CPU fan if it is caked in gunk. This will increase cooling efficiency. And it might solve your problem. You have tried virus scans etc and they have revealed no bad programs so im leaning towards overheating.

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  3. #3
    Do you have any scheduled application or tasks?
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  4. #4
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    I do seem to remember having something like that with Me...................I believe the "hibernate" feature can be a problem with 98/Me, but cannot remember the circumstances.

    The overheating suggestion is a good starting place though.

    Also go into Control Panel and Power Options Properties: set "power scheme" to "Always on" and "System Standby" to "never" (you might have to get to this via "Display Properties"/Energy saving properties of monitor with your OS). Whilst you are in "Display Properties" set "Screen Saver" to "none"

    I would then re-boot and go into "setup" and see what your BIOS settings are for "advanced power management" or whatever it calls it. Try turning this feature off.

    Hope this helps

    EDIT: sorry about that, I have just moved house and can't find anything

    I have just found and activated a P1/133 that boots 98se. What I should have told you (the above is for Me not 98):

    The control panel icon is called "Power Management"...you get a pop-up called "Power Management Properties"

    Set "Power Schemes" to "always on" and the "Turn off Monitor" and "Turn off Hard Disks" to "never" REMEMBER TO CLICK "APPLY" before you ok out of it. Then go check your BIOS settings.

    I think that the default scheme is home/office desk which will shut things down after a while. Just touching the mouse or even a slight vibration can cause it to fire up again, which may make it look like it is doing it on its own.

    Not sure how this has happened. Does anyone else use your machine or is it connected to a LAN? Or, has your usage pattern changed over the last week?


  5. #5
    Hi mom!
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    Just a tought: maybe you're looking in the wrong direction.

    Could there be a spike on your power-outlet on that time? For instance, do you share an outlet with something like a washing machine that's turned on at night? Something else hefty?
    I wish to express my gratitude to the people of Italy. Thank you for inventing pizza.

  6. #6
    I would think it to be some sort of hardware problem possibly, I've got hardware problem, My mouse and keyboard stop working entirely, its like theyre not even plugged in. It happens almost totally randomly, but mostly when my monitor goes into power saving. Anyone ever had that problem?
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  7. #7
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    Are you on a back up power/surge protector. If not look to see if anything else goes on that uses a lot of amps, in your house. Easest way is to turn on TV and see if picture dims at that time. If you have power/surge on line. It could be your power supply is going. It may be that is the time it gets to cool down and or heat up.

  8. #8
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Guus........that is a good thought....I have had stuff to prevent it for so long, I had forgotten it as an an option. However, if they cancel power management witin windoze and BIOS, we will narrow the cause down?

    prost, skol, a votre sante, cheers or whatever

  9. #9
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    Thanks folks for your responses as for a power spike I am on a good surge protector and there is nothing on in the house at that time of night other then the tv and a couple of lights. As for the options in the control panel I checked these and they are set for power schemes always on same as monitor and harddrive. As for anyone else using the computer no my daughter has been at camp all summer and my husband cannt even turn on the computer. My computer is all by its lonesome with only me to talk to it. I am also on dial up, but this has happened even when I am not on line. So I guess I will have to try the cleaning sugestion to see if that helps other than it rebooting its self the computer works fine no real crashes or freezes so I guess I am lucky in that way. But thanks I will let you know how the cleaning goes when I do it tomorrow.
    No good deed goes unpunished.

  10. #10
    If you have extra power supply try swapping it and see how it goes. Or check your power supply, if this helps

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