Computer Problems (Yet again)

[Redbone]

It's stranger this time.

I was playing Sleepless Hollow, and suddenly, my computer auto-restarted! I logged into Lunachick Fan (My computer user account name) and it said 'Windows has recovered from a serious error'. I sent error report and it said that teh blue screen of death appeared! But it didn't.

Later, it happened again when testing a Game Maker game, then with an RPG Maker 2003 game, and then RuneScape!

The next day, it happened yet again. And this time, all the computers in my house auto-restarted, at the SAME TIME!

Does anyone know what the problem is? Or know a solution? 'Cause I want to play Supreme with Cheese. [/longpost]

[SpiderPumpkin]

Could be a heat problem or (more likely, since you said that all the computers restarted at the same time once) a problem with the power supply. -o_-o

[Redbone]

Computer or tempreature heat?

[Licking Post]

If the problem is the power supply, I believe there are some special (expensive!) power strips that charge up when the power is on, and if the power goes out for some reason it will still continue to power things for several minutes. The idea is to give you sufficient time to save things and shut down your computer properly before you lose power. It should also work for power glitches where the power goes off for a fraction of a second, which could be what's triggering all your computers to restart at once. But as I said, they are rather expensive. I can't quite remember, but they might have been well over $50.

[Redbone]

I'm not paying any more money, I've spent ALOT to fix the computer every time. -,-

[TyTBone]

I have the occasional auto-restart problem too ('puter goes off, and Windows says,"You've just recovered from a serious error" or something to that effect), but I just got a new power supply, so I don't think that's the issue. It might be power going off for a fraction of a second, though; the wiring in our house is pretty old.

[Redbone]

It might be the heat. I'm gonna see if it still happenes, it's rainin today.

[PlasmaCannonsRule]

It has happened to me before, but strangely, it only happens while I'm playing WoW.

[Jamul]

That has happened to me while playing WoW too, twice. In my case, I am almost positive it's an overheat, because I'm on a laptop, and boy oh boy does it get toasty (it's on the table, not in my lap - I would be badly injured otherwise). I've devised an ingenious system of stacking it up on some game cases to let air flow better around it (especially around the actual exhaust port), and haven't seen it happen again. Yet. But this is shaping up to be a ludicrous summer already, and that might be trouble!

You can presume it's an overheat when it happens during a 3D game, because pushing the 3D card really hard generates a lot of heat. That's why many 3D cards have their own separate fans. I can definitely feel a difference in the heat of my computer after a bunch of WoW as compared to just hanging around in windows. The other thing that makes me call it an overheat is that when it shut off, I tried to turn it back on and got no response. I was all freaked out the first time, thinking my computer had just died, but after it had rested about 30 seconds, it responded right away to the power switch. I can't think of anything but heat that that would fit.

[Sillyman]

It's not a power problem if windows is telling you you got a BSOD when you restarted it. It's definitely a bluescreen, and it could be an overheat. Sometimes in XP, a bluescreen isn't actually displayed but simply restarted immediately.

[AtkinsSJ]

I think there's an option to turn off auto-rebooting somewhere, given that you usually want to know what's gone wrong.

My computer's only ever heat-died once, on a really hot summer, when my computer was basically wrapped in corrugated card to stop my rats eating it. I developed a better protection method after that.

[Redbone]

How do you turn off auto-rebooting/turn on teh blue screen of death?

[AtkinsSJ]

I really have no idea. You'll have to look it up.

[Julian]

I think you hold F8 down while starting, and choose the option that's something like that.