Computer restarts consistently but is fine in safe mode?

Question

Hi guys, I'm currently facing major computer problems. My computer keeps restarting in normal mode. It's also quite random when it restarts. Sometimes it takes 1 minute, other times it takes 1 hour.

So considering the fact it's perfectly fine in safe mode, that now excludes overheating and power supply problems. I have scanned my whole computer with Avast, SpyBot, cleaned some stuff with CCleaner, and Ad-Aware. That excludes virus/trojan problems I guess. What else is there left? Hardware problems or whatever?

System Restoring 2 days back do not help either.

Any ideas and suggestions? Thanks.

Answer 1

You've already done some of the things I was going to suggest, so let's go to the next step.  There has to be something in 'normal' Windows that's the cause of the problem.  

First, give Windows a tune up.  Hit Start -- Run and type "sfc /scannow" (without the " marks; note the space after sfc).  Your computer will start the System File Checker program and check and restore all your critical Windows files.  If your Windows was pre-installed, it will get the correct files from the windows partition on your disk.  If you installed it yourself, put your disk in when it asks for it.  Be patient - this takes about 20 minutes to complete.  See how things work.

If this doesn't help, then let's get rid of most of the stuff normal Windows comes with to figure out what's the problem.  Do this:

1. Boot to regular Windows (or safe mode if it won't go to regular mode) and go to the Windows Configuration File.  Click Start  -- Run and type "msconfig" (without the " marks).

2. When it opens, right in front of you, you will see a series of radio buttons (Normal, Diagnostic and Selective).  Hit Diagnostic and hit OK.  It will take a few minutes, but you will see a dialog box asking to restart the computer.  Hit Restart.

3. Upon re-boot, you will get a message that you changed the configuration program.  Put a check in the box and hit OK.

With Windows in diagnostic mode, your background programs (virus, firewall, updates, etc.) won't work and you won't be able to print or install anything.  The point is to see if the shutdown thing goes away.  If not, then you have a hardware problem.  In full Windows, there is a greater demand on your power supply and memory in particular, so I would start there.

If the problem goes away, then something you stopped was the problem.  Now go back to msconfig and click on the Selective button.  Only click on one of the buttons under this and re-boot.  Check things.  If all is OK, go back and hit button #2, reboot and recheck.  Keep doing this until the problem comes back.  The last thing you turned back on was the problem.  Each of the items in the list corresponds to a tab in msconfig.  You can do further troubleshooting from these tabs or just re-post and let us know which section caused the problem so we can give further directions.

Good Luck.

Answer 2

Tempting as it is to blame the Safe Mode success on blocked malware, it is possible that a faulty driver, or the driver of a faulty piece of hardware, is being loaded in normal mode but not in Safe mode.

I'd try working down that road.  For instance, see if Safe Mode With Networking is also functional.

Good luck.