my computer boots up to the desktop, appears to be running fine, then suddenly restarts, then boots to the desktop, then i get a "windows has recovered from a serious error" message, then it restarts again...and repeat. my gut feeling is that my CPU keeps overheating and it has some sort of built in protection of some kind. this is on my Dell, and it has the horrid ducting setup, i dont know if anyone has seen it or not...some fan in the back has been making noises every so often, but when i hit the box they quit so im thinking my fan is going kaput on me, and isnt doing its job....any other thoughts? i havent made any changes at all recently, ive been running the same setup for quite some time.

Win ME?

no its XP Pro with SP2, i did a clean install about a month ago. and everything was just peachy until like 2 days ago.

Well usually anytime windows restarts without the user initating the process, you will get that error message, so thats normal.

Do you got fans on the power source and cpu? If you had install any aftermarket fans, it can sometimes cause more heat, depending on the location of where you put them.

Have you booted to safe mode yet?

Probably overheting - I know exactly what you mean about the fan ducting. I have a Dell too, but it'* never given me any problems I couldn't narrow down to EBKAC.

Try opening it up and giving it a thourough cleaning. You can also oil the fan. Peel the label up that covers the "works", apply ONE drop of oil, seal it back up. Done.

It can also restart from the voltage levels jumping around. If your PC is plugged in near some major appliances, it will have the tendancy to restart on its own. Refrigerators are known to cause this because when the motor kicks on, it pulls a lot of power that the computer can't take. Check to see where your PC is plugged in.

It'* probably an issue with your RAM. I had this exact same issue in the box that I recenly built at home. Would do EXACLTY what you described.

Process of elimination brought me to the RAM. I popped out a stick of RAM (was running 2 512s), booted it up, still did it. Powered it off, popped that one back in, popped out the other one, booted it up, ran great for over an hour. Then, moved that good one to the other socket (to make sure it wasn't a socket issue on the mobo) and it still ran great...and has for 4 months. If you have multiple sticks of RAM, try that.

Computers should work without any ram installed, there is onboard memory, but most likely you wont get past the bios.

It should, but it can also cause a random reboot. Depends on what the RAM is sending back to the mobo.

well the computer is plugged in near a freezer, but its been plugged in there since the day i bought it so i doubt its just now causing problems. i do have multiple RAM modules as well....but see heres a weird thing, i had the clock ratio of the CPU set to 24x...i think it was at 20x when i got it, and its been like that and stable for a LONG time, when it started doing this last night i set it back to 20 and it ran fine for i would say at least 4 hrs straight, if not longer...and then this morning it started acting up again..i set the clock all the way down to 10x(as low as it will go) and it still does it....ill work with it some tonight to see if maybe its the RAM....but the fact the fan has been making noises the past few weeks, and the air coming out is noticeably warmer, and the fact the heatsink is almost hot to the touch, all make me think that its that fan not doing its job...i might try and lube it up some, i also have another heatsink/fan that will work fine, i just need some goo!