Unusual Restart Issue

We've had a problem with one of our pc's for a while, where it would spontaneously restart at random times.

The video card doesn't have a separate power input, so my first thought was that the power supply wasn't providing the mobo with enough, so I swapped it out. I even tried removing the video card and using the on-board graphics. No dice.

The solution, as strange as it seems, is to have GW running. The machine never restarts when GW is running, even in the background. I've had to add GW to the startup menu and leave it minimized when doing anything else just get the machine to be stable.

It could just be a computer with a GW addiction, but I'd like to find a better solution than being forced to launch a particular game in order to keep the system stable...

Any ideas?

Providing your running windows XP ( might be same in vista )

Go to

Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer

On the left hand panel you are looking for

Application and System

When you click them it will load into the right panel, you are looking for the ones that are warnings or errors,

If something is failing in the system, driver etc, it should pick it up in there.

If its all clear in there, id be aiming towards hardware.

What are the specs of your system.

Spontaneous reboots should be a hardware issue.

Heat is the most likely culprit.

Followed distantly by static electric discharge/case grounding problems.

Thanks for the thoughts. Nothing in event viewer.

I also thought about heat - the cpu runs in the 55-60 degree C range and never spiked up before a reboot. I also think that running it under a load (GW running) would raise the temp from just idle, and running under a load is what makes it stable.

I can't figure out why it takes an extra load on the pc to make it stable...

Do you have something set to automatically change when a 3d app is running? I think the newer vid card control panels have some "only when running 3d app" modes for certain settings. Maybe see if you can turn all the options to "always on", and see if that has the same effect as having GW up.

Also, do you have any other 3d games you can run, and do they still stop the restarts?

that's a strange problem - based on what's been said so far I'd question the stability of the power supply. Actually having more wattage drawn under load may be stabilizing it - that would be the first thing that I would check if I were you.