My computer has recently started to shutdown and restart for no apparent reason. This is very problematic, since it sometimes occurs when I am in the middle of working on the computer. Upon restarting, a message appears saying ‘The system has recovered from a serious error’. How can I stop these random restarts from happening? The computer is running Windows XP SP2.

These types of errors are very difficult to diagnose since the error message detail, provided with the error message, are not particularly helpful in finding the root cause of the error. Since the problem only began recently, did you make any changes to the computer or Windows immediately prior to this problem starting (for example, installing new software or hardware)? If so, try reversing this change to see whether the problem stops. However, if you do not recall doing anything prior to the problem occurring then we need to investigate further to find the actual cause.

We need to narrow down the problem to either a hardware or software fault. Windows has a handy utility called the Event Log. This captures major system events into a log and can help provide insight into the underlying cause of system problems. Go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel and open the ‘Administrative Tools’ control panel (you may need to first click the ‘Performance and Maintenance’ category). Open the ‘Event Viewer’ and you should see the Event Viewer window appear. We are most interested in the ‘Application’ and ‘System’ events. Click ‘Application’ and you will see the event logs appear in the right-hand pane. Look through the logs until you find the date/time when the last system crash/restart occurred. See if there are any entries labelled ‘Warning’ or ‘Error’ at this time. If so, double-click on the entry to see further details. You should also repeat this procedure for the ‘System’ logs, since this will detail system-wide events.

Should there be ‘Warning’ or ‘Error’ events at the time of the last system crash, it is highly likely these are related to the problem. Therefore, hopefully they should give you a clue as to the root cause. For example, if they are related to a particular program or process then try uninstalling that program (or finding the program which is related to the process, and then uninstall the underlying program) to see whether the problem persists. Likewise, should the error be related to something like a memory addressing problem this may indicate that the memory in the computer has become faulty. Unfortunately I cannot provide more specific advice, since there are literally a massive number of possible errors which could be flagged by the Event Viewer. So, if an error is flagged but you are unsure how to proceed then please contact me again with specific information regarding the flagged events and I will try to provide you with further advice.

Should you be unable to determine the root cause of the problem from the Event Viewer, we still need to determine whether the problem is software or hardware related. The only easy way to determine this is reinstalling Windows from scratch. However, before taking this step we should first check the computer memory for faults, since this is one of the more common hardware faults. There is a very useful utility called Memtest86 which can test the computer memory for faults, which may be useful. See this week’s Tip of the Week for more information on Memtest86.

Should the memory pass the Memtest86 testing process, the problem is either some other hardware component, or is software related. At this stage, the next step to narrow down the problem is reinstalling Windows. While reinstalling Windows is not the most convenient process, it should provide a relatively definitive answer on what is causing the problem. Make sure that before reinstalling Windows you do a complete backup of all data you wish to keep (e.g. documents, etc) as the reinstallation procedure will wipe the entire hard drive and will erase all data on the drive. Therefore, it is essential you backup all the data you wish to keep before attempting the reinstallation.

Should the problem continue after reinstalling Windows, it seems the issue is related to a hardware component. Since we have ruled out memory, which is one of the more common faulty hardware components, it is likely some other component. In this case, there is little else I can suggest apart from taking your computer to a technician or computer shop for further help.