How do computers restart?

Answer

It is a program that restarts your computer. It sounds like you may have a corrupted program on your computer that is causing the problem. This happens for many reasons . It happens most often during reloading of programs and may have happened at the factory. No way of knowing for sure.

I would suggest doing a systems restore. This should be already on your computer.

If you do not know how, contact your ISP or computer manufacturer and hey will instruct you on what to do. Your computer should me under warrantee and while it is this service should be free.

August

Answer

When you press on the power button (or shut down through an OS) it begins by saving all used data and dumping all RAM (Random Access Memory). This, in turn shuts down the OS and finally the circuitry cuts off power to the motherboard, the final click is when capacitors are discharged at the end.

Answer

The operating system may intercept an ACPI button event from you pressing the power or sleep button. The OS may also initiate a restart from Start/Shutdown/Restart (Windows) or init 6 / reboot or shutdown command (*NIX).

Once the restart sequence is initiated, the OS may instruct all running programs that a shutdown is in progress. These programs/services in turn will initiate their shutdown process to save data and unload from memory safely. The OS will eventually KILL programs or services that do not support or respond to a shutdown event.

The OS will send a command to the ATX power supply (onyl ATX supports soft powerdown) if shutting down. Otherwise, the OS will simply issue a command to the CPU to warm boot.

BIOS then takes over the boot process, loads first 512 bytes of detected boot device, jumps to boot loader code and you are back up and runnning.

In the case of problematic restarts, these may be due to malfunctioning hardware on the bus (add-on cards) or misbehaving drivers. Safe mode or single user boot will rule out most drivers. Failing that, yank non-critical add-on periferals.

First answer by Scott P.. Last edit by Veggivore. Contributor trust: 25 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 217 [recommend question]

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