After upgrading to Windows XP Professional the computer reboots without warning. Sometimes this happens up to three times within the first 40 minutes after the computer is powered-up. At other times, it occurs less frequently, maybe only once. On two occasions technicians have checked the machine for viruses and faults, but they have been unable to correct the problem. The hard drive has also been upgraded, but the problem persists.

Most of the legwork in solving this problem will be tracking down the cause of the issue. Firstly, start the computer in Safe Mode. This will not load any non-essential programs or drivers. To boot into Safe Mode, restart the computer and after the power on self test completes, start tapping the F8 key. The Windows XP boot menu should appear. Select ‘Safe Mode’ and press ENTER. Once Windows has loaded, wait to see whether the computer reboots. You may wish to do some simple operations, such as use a word processor to simulate activity. Be aware that you won’t be able to do things like logon to the internet, as there is no networking support in this mode of operation. If the rebooting problem persists, then the problem is more serious. In this case, the problem could be attributed to either a hardware problem (e.g. bad power supply, bad RAM) or a serious Windows problem. Try backing up any important data, formatting the hard drive, and reinstalling Windows. Should the problem continue, it sounds like a hardware problem. Please contact me again in this situation.

If the problem does not persist in Safe Mode, the problem is likely related to either a program running on the computer or a device driver. Restart the computer and Windows will boot back into normal mode. Once Windows has finished loading, close all running applications in the system tray. Then use CTRL-ALT-DEL to start the Task Manager. Click the ‘Processes’ tab, then click the ‘User Name’ column to sort the tasks by the user name. Close all non-essential processes running under your user name. You should be able to safely close all the tasks except ‘explorer.exe’. Once this has been done, leave the computer and wait to see if the problem persists. If not, now you just need to narrow down the problem to a particular process.

However, if the problem continues then it is possible after upgrading to Windows XP, a device driver on your computer is not compatible with XP, thus causing the problems. It will be quite tricky to check each drive to see whether it is causing the problem. Probably the best way to approach this is by disconnecting devices from your computer, such as USB printers, to see if the problem persists. It may also be worthwhile checking for new drivers for devices such as sound cards, video cards and any strange bits of hardware you have installed which may not be compatible with XP, such as a TV tuner card. Please let me know how this goes. It may also be worthwhile checking the Event Viewer for any information it could provide on problems within Windows. You can access the Event Viewer through the ‘Administrative Tools’ control panel > ‘Event Viewer’.