Why The Restart?

[woodelf]

Why does my pc suddenly shut off and restart, for no apparent reason, not to me anyway - as simple as possible please guys, you know what a thicko I am - "we do indeed," grins Lie-in King - Ta Muchly and Take Care.

[barry1010]

No idea. How often does it happen? Could it be for system updates?

[bhg481]

It's probably a bug in one of the many programs you are running. You will have noticed that you are often offered upgrades to such programs as Firefox; some are to plug security holes and some are to fix bugs.

[woodelf]

Me neither Barry, it did it about 20 mins ago, just like that - as Tommy Cooper would say - no info at all about any updates, etc!

[woodelf]

No indication at all BHG, just goes off and restarts!

[aelmpvw]

overheating?

[barry1010]

When I had fan problems and overheated my pc just shut down, didn't restart.

[bhg481]

There are so many programs running on your computer at any given time (just look at Windows Task Manager to see) and sometimes a particular combination of things just manages to find a bug in one of them. If you're lucky it doesn't have much of an effect; if you're unlucky it crashes the machine. As I said in my earlier post, manufacturers fix known bugs but sometimes the fix can create a different bug which doesn't show up intil a different situation is encountered; with complicated programs it's impossible to test for every situation which might arise.
In my programming days I once had the priviledge of working with a computer genius, a former colleage of Alan Turing. He once said to me "When you've removed 90% of the bugs from a program only 50% remain"; he was absolutely right.

[tamborine]

When my electric gadgets go awry I disconnect plug for 5mins for a reset. Try, it might work for you.

ps something to do with static ?

[Togo]

How often does this happen? If it is once in a while, say every few weeks or so, it could be a restart after an upgrade. If this is likely you can alter the settings so that it only restarts on your command and not automatically. If the restarts are happening on a regular basis during every session we may need some more detail. Is there a warning or message, is the fan running properly or is the pc overheating. Is there sufficient space available on the drive. etc. etc.

[bhg481]

There's always the possibility that you have a problem with the memory or one of the discs in your computer. If the problem is happening frequently it might be a good idea to run a memory check and also check and repair all your hard discs.

[Prudie]

This happens to me and it's always for an update or security scan. Unless I notice the pop-up warning me it just goes ahead and does it.

[woodelf]

Hi guys, no overheating, loads of space on drive, done a complete shutdown, no indications and turn off and restart are erratic and unpredictable...but, if I/we can stay with this, I can take today as a start day and note from here, if and when it happens again - which was 0904 Sunday 6 Dec 2020.

[bhg481]

Can you tell us exactly what your setup is please woodelf? Laptop or desktop, Windows 7/8/10, how many, how big and what type are your discs (HDD or SSD)? Are your discs internal or do you have any plugged into USB sockets?

[Togo]

You can stop it automatically restarting Prudie, in the "Advance Options" sub menu in Windows Updates. You need to have the slider activated for "show a notification when your pc requires a restart to finish updating". (This is for W10 operating system)

Sorry to divert Woody.

[woodelf]

I can't tell you exactly BHG, as I'm an idiot!...but I have a desktop pc, running Windows 10 with internal discs, no idea of HDD or SSD, but know I have something that is 64 rather than 32 - I also have a screen reader!..."ah," they all say, "a screen reader, eh!"...

[Togo]

For those who don't know. Woodelf has a sight impairment and far from being silly is in fact very accomplished nevertheless.

[woodelf]

...and I thought it was because a tree fell on me when I was Jung - no, that was Freud - and Schneider too?...what a happy fellow, best left to leave him alone, eh!

[bhg481]

Sometimes external discs can cause trouble if they have a problem - I had one playing up recently and the computer was taking hours to shut down; you have none, so that can't be your problem.
Running a disc-check is harmless if time consuming. Togo is more familiar with Win 10 than I am, so will be able to tell you how to do the check. All discs have spare sectors which can be used to replace bad sectors that the disk-check finds but you need to tell it to do this; all it involves is ticking a box "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors". If you do that (one disc at a time) at least it will tell you that your discs are in good shape. Your machine may be unusable whilst running this, particularly when you check the system disc, so be warned; it can also take a fair time, depending how big your discs are.

[woodelf]

Thank you for that BHG!

[Togo]

Before you get to disc check procedures Woodelf, are you sure that you have not picked up a virus and that your settings are not letting automatic restarts after upgrades or patch installs. You will need to take a looks at Advance Settings in the Windows Updates menu ie the toggle for permission. Then go into "Windows Security", "Virus and Threat Protection", and then "Scan Options" and run "Full Scan". This takes some time but you can use the machine whilst it scans. You can also run Malwarebytes or similar if you have the programme installed. When this all comes back clean is the time for disc checks I think.