Reboot after 5-10 minutes of use

[Sweeper]

AMD Athlon 1700 @ 49c (Alarm set for 60c) has never gone off.
40GB Western Digital ATA100 7200RPM
32 MB GF2
384MB PC133 SDRAM (Micron)
MSI G-Max
300w Generic PSU
52x CDROM
3 1/2 Floppy
Win. XP

Computer has never been connected to internet. Used for light gaming, school work, listening to music (Via CD's). Recently it has been restarting after about 5-10 minutes of use? Looked it over and everything seems in working order. But it will just shut down and restart ??? Even during normal windows activities.

[VTScotty]

I have had that happen to me but it was a heat issue caused by a power supply fan failure. Since you have a temp gauge this is probably not your problem but I would check the case to make sure nothing in there is overheating.

[MrPurple]

The temp guage is only for the CPU, not the system or the PSU. Check every 2 or 3 minutes to see if the PSU fan is working, if so its not a fan issue.

Also does the system reboot while you are doing something, or when its idle. If its when you are doing something they it could be your RAM, or the OS. Try getting all the critical Windows updates sometimes they help.
Chances are its your OS then HD thos, so what I would do is go to your Control Pannel, System, click on the Advanced tab, and click on Start up and Recovery. There you will see a section called System Failure and three check boxes. Uncheck the one that says Automatical Restart. This way next time your system gets an error instead of rebooting it will hang on the error screen, and you will see what file caused the fault. You can take it from there.

[crystaldragon]

A failing power supply will do that sometimes.
I had the same behaviour a few months ago. Tested it by connecting a spare power supply temporarily.

[Sweeper]

thanks for the quick replies.. going to check out the psu fan then go from there. Never paid attention to the fan on the psu. 'DOH!' Also, I will uncheck the auto restart box.

Thanks... I'll try these....