strange restarting problem

[drift180sx]

My computer had this strange problem. At first it will keep restarting if i switch it off or put it in stand by mode. The restart happens with a trip of a switch sound and it will happen about 20 times, ranging from start up to 30 minutes later. To prevent this i have not switched off my computer off for about a year. I have done a system recovery this week and i forgot to turn off the standby in ~~ minutes option. Now my computer is messed up, it will restart even after the usual 30 minutes, but less frequently. I have asked sony and geek squad. Sony tells me incompatible 3rd party hardware and geek squad tells me OS start error or boot error, something like that. my friends told me about overheating and not enough power, which i dont think its the case. What do you guys think? any help is appreciated =) Thank You.

 

[kitty500cat]

Hello drift180sx and welcome to TechSpot.
What are your system specifications?
It sounds like a power supply and/or power switch (on the front of the case) problem
Cheers

 

[Condor]

lol.. u haven't restart your PC for a year O.O;; neglectttttting lolx.. i think your pc is giving up on ya.. or overheating.... just silent it and put it to rest. Get a new one to end it pain mate.

 

[drift180sx]

I'll go get a new power supply and see what happens. Thanks

the specs:
vaio VGC-RA820G
Intel Pentium 4 540, 3200 MHz
Intel Grantsdale i915P
2048 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
200gb and 300gb hard disk

 

[Tmagic650]

Clean out all the dust and dirt when you replace that power supply

 

[Hatrick]

Before spending money on that PSU, download and run Speedfan (free) from sysinternals.com. It will tell you if there are any power problems, and a great deal more, besides.

If there is overheating, do as suggested, clean out dust and especially ensure that any and every airhole in the pc is clean. I did this yesterday, after numerous BSODs, and temperatures have dropped by 10 degrees C all round. So far, touch wood, no problems.

 

[drift180sx]

Thats a good program, thanks.How do you check about the required power with that program? btw my computer doesnt have any fan, only for the chip, so its relatively free of dust. It has the liquid cooling thing, but i dont see any liquid tough... haha. Im now considering the problem with RAM placements, i think ill bring it to the service centre once christmas is over. Happy Holidays^^

 

[Hatrick]

If you go to {heatsink-guide.com} you'll find a list of critical temperatures for most CPUs.

Somewhere in Speedfan - but damned if I can find it today - is an option to change temperatures at which the colour coded warnings operate, but I think those chosen are based on information gained from on board components and should be perfectly safe.

By the way, have you checked out the S.M.A.R.T tab, and the author's on line articles, which are well worth reading?