Computer Keeps Restarting Itself --- NEED HELP

[c0ncept-2]

Not sure if this is the right section. Please move if not.
Hello. I purchase my computer in February 2007, for a good deal from a friend. The parts were bought separately and he had owned it about 4 months before selling as he needed a laptop for school. In hindsight it might not have been a good choice to buy without warranty, but thats said and done.

The computer did not have a genuine windows on it so i could not get windows updates. During July/August 2007 I began to have problems. The computer would restart itself at random points. This happened occasionally until November when it restarted, and completely dumped the OS and all my files, and would not get past a screen saying "verifying DMI data pool". We eventually had a friend of the family come over who was pretty computer savy and was able to reinstall windows. The computer was fine for a month before the exact thing happened. About 3 weeks ago I took it into a shop and they diagnosed the problem was the hard drive which was fried. So I purchased a new HD and a genuine copy of Windows. The last few weeks have been great, but just a few days ago the problem reappeared. My computer now restarts itself more frequently, maybe twice a day. I've googled it and come up with many possibilities. I was afraid of overheating so I took the side panel off and placed an 8" diameter fan by my feet pointed as the copmuter to keep it cool since this morning, but it has restarted twice already today. It can't be the HD or OS since they are 2 weeks old. Could someone please give me some insight? This problem has been going on so long and its such a pain, everytime I think I've gotten rid of it, it comes right back and gets me.

Please, any input is appreciated,
Thanks

 

[Snake91839]

Ok. Well first off your guess of overheating was a good one, because that would be my first guess to. However, placing a fan there will not do much if the damage has already been done by the heat to the circuits of your hardware. Since it doesn't sound like overheating though, I would look more at your memory. Memory has done this to me before, and sometimes as little as a re-seat fixed it. When that didn't work, new memory took care of the problem right away. If that doesn't work, my next guess would be the motherboard. But let's start with the memory for right now

 

[c0ncept-2]

Ok. Well first off your guess of overheating was a good one, because that would be my first guess to. However, placing a fan there will not do much if the damage has already been done by the heat to the circuits of your hardware. Since it doesn't sound like overheating though, I would look more at your memory. Memory has done this to me before, and sometimes as little as a re-seat fixed it. When that didn't work, new memory took care of the problem right away. If that doesn't work, my next guess would be the motherboard. But let's start with the memory for right now

so for starters should i just turn the computer off, remove and plug them back in to see if it works? any for detailed or advanced ways of checking after that?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

well, if you want to check the memory, run a memtest on the ram to make sure it's not faulty. Try running with just one stick in at a time too.

 

[Nitestick]

to me this sounds like a HDD/filesystem issue given that it stalls at the "DMI pool data" screen (in my personal experience this is almost synonymous with a corrupt filesystem or damaged HDD). however i have also seen this issue as a result of instability caused by either CPU or memory, especially with overclocking.

 

[jamesd0707]

this probanly be the cpu i had seen a simalar problem @ work a few times get that. failing that set the heating settings in the advanced bios setting to a higher setting dont think it'll be a ram problem if it was it would make a beeping noise when it turns off.
instead of buying a new cpu take the heatsink and fan off the cpu and check that the cpu doesnt need cleaned that sumtimes helps as well.

 

[c0ncept-2]

I decided to remove all my hardware, clean out all the fans, and sockets with "Dust Off". You wouldn't believe how much dust there was in the fan for my graphics card. I replugged everything in. I just finished running a thorough virus search, and there were 3 files which were unable to search becasue they were a "decompression bomb", any insight on this (they are all from torrent downloads), but the software cannot seem to move or delete them. So far today there have been no problems (knock on wood).

As I am not too savvy with computers, I was hoping someone could clear things up. I understand how either software/hardware could be responsible for a computer rebooting itself. What I don't get is why the rebooting last time in the fall killed my hard drive, and dumped my operating system and all memory. Could someone give me an answer for that?

EDIT: It did it again. I might try to adjust the BIOS settings for the fan if I can find them

 

[KSoD]

If you are worried about viruses and spyware check out Osiris's guide.

http://www.techist.com/forums/f51/spyware-removal-guide-osiris-165828/

Post a hijack this log in the analyze area:

http://www.techist.com/forums/f70/