why is my computer restarting itself??

Maggie Annie

in the last couple of weeks I've installed AVG 7.0 and (re)installed a printer and my computer has taken to restarting itself.

I wonder could these be connected? Would be grateful for opinions!

Thanks.

Velcrow

Alright Maggie
To help you get a bit more info on your restarting the first thing to do is - turn off automatic restart, when your computer gets in to trouble - to do this right click on My Computer ( I am assuming your xp ), click the advanced tab, click the setting button of the Startup and recovery section and uncheck ( untick ) automatically restart.

Then the next time you have an error - instead of your computer restarting it will display a blue screen with the error on it - take the info down and search for it on google and you should find a solution...

kmb

did u uninstall drivers completely for the printer before reinstall?
When does it restart randomly or near the start of your work?
regds kieran

maximus_

is it a lexmark printer??

Maggie Annie

thanks for replies.

Epson!

yes it does seem to be soon after I've switched it on.

& yep fairly sure I did uninstall drivers, the printer preferences were coming up in Portugese or something so emailed Epson help people who sent back instructions for un and re installing it, involved (among other things) unticking and ticking printer spool tick boxes, running 'msconfig' couple of times, and I did put in the Epson Drivers CD to reinstall.

thing is I can't remember if it was restarting before I did all that or not. I suspect its AVG is to blame!

also, when it restarts there's a little window asking do I want to send an error report to MS, eventually I ticked ok and it pulled up a page all about diagnosing driver problems (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=322205 if anyone's interested!), thing is it looked so long and boring, and I'm SICK of trying to fix *!"£$(*&^ computer, and boards.ie people seem so helpful and full of advice I thought I’d try here first…

also isn't restarting sometimes caused by viruses ! ?

Jonathanpbk

its true that some virii cause your computer to restart spontaniously but more often then not it warns you first... (i think thats just to piss you off!!!) sometimes spontaneous restarts are to do with a dodgy power supply but you wouldn't get an error message... id bet its to do with a dodgy install or driver conflict or something. i'd say to uninstall the printer completely and uninstall avg completely, restart and see if there is any change.

Ruu_Old

when it brings up the little window and asks you to send an error report, can you get more info on that for me. It should give you an option to click more info. You will see what file is causing the crash.

sector

Boot it into safe mode and see if it crashes
-Hit F8 upon bootup & select Safe Mode

If it doesn't reboot anymore we're dealing with software.

Attempt to remove AVG (you may attempt this in safe mode first)
-Using Start/Settings/Control Panel/Add Remove Programs Or it's own uninstaller if it has one located in the Program Group displayed through the Start Button.

Doubtful your printer is causing the problem but to rule it out when you boot into normal windows go into Control Panel/Administrative Tools & either Services or Component Services & stop "Print Spooler" and now see if uptime increases.

Regards

sector

Also very importantly please make sure you're only running one antivirus, look through everything installed in Add/Remove programs, they really don't play well together, even very old versions.

kmb

Hi,did u try taking printer off the system and seeing if there was still a problem?Most probably a driver issue.

Trial and error,best policy.Always go back on what changed since problem arose.What epson printer is it and what windows are you using?


Regards kieran

Maggie Annie

Thanks again for replies.

Thing is, it hasn't shut itself down now for about a week so I think i'll pretend it never happened and keep my fingers crossed!

Scuse the ignorance but

sector wrote:

Doubtful your printer is causing the problem but to rule it out when you boot into normal windows go into Control Panel/Administrative Tools & either Services or Component Services & stop "Print Spooler" and now see if uptime increases.

- what is uptime??

Thanks.

Khannie

uptime is the amount of time your computer has been turned on for without needing to be rebooted, or without rebooting itself (for whatever reason).

sector

Good News so, be aware of what your doing in casing it goes again, that would reveal where you should be concentrating your attention.

All The Best

tophurler

I had this problem before - think it was Norton Antivirus that was causing the problem. My next step would have been to get a new PSU - so I tried removing norton and it solved it.

Hope this is of help.
TH