computer reboots

[bdog]

Sometimes I help my parent's friends with their computers because they live in a small town and tech support is expensive and often inadequate. One of my mom's friends computer just started randomly rebooting. It does this at random times and in all programs. She said there were no software or hardware changes to the system in at least six months. I don't have a description of the computer other than it is a amd k6 custom built running windows 95. I know that with this description I can't expect much help, but I was just wondering about how to track something like this down. I have seen a computer behave this way when incompatible ram was installed, but never one that just started on its own. I assume that some type of hardware is going bad, but not sure. Any suggestions?

[TOAD6147]

Could be "dirty power" from the local power company or possibly the box power supply starting to fail. Is it an ATX form board?
Could be a boot virus as well. Have they downloaded any questionable files lately and are they running a good, updated virus program?
I just did a search for you and got another hit suggesting power supply as well with the suggestion that it may be heat related, i.e., bad fan in power supply (or on the CPU,too)or too much dust build-up. The old AT style and the early ATX style cases/power supplies would take outside air and blow it in over the CPU. They realized over time, however, that this was not an efficient way to cool the CPU plus it was bringing in dust and not exhausting the heat.

[This message has been edited by TOAD6147 (edited 01-24-2000).]

[This message has been edited by TOAD6147 (edited 01-24-2000).]

[Dave_H]

If its not the PS I would suspect (like you)
bad ram. The ram could be going bad or been damaged by a spike or something. You have an extra stick laying around?
Dave