REALLY SERIOUS PCG-K215B SUDDEN RESTART PROBLEM!

[Kei]

Ok this is a really bad problem. I have a Vaio PCG-K215B, I bought it on the 14th July 2004.
Specs are as follows:
Intel Celeron 2.8ghz
HDD: 40GB
512MB DDR RAM
ATi Radeon IGP 345M

Everythin is updated, Windows all updated (SP1), Norton Internet Security 2004 updated, all drivers up to date. Ad-aware 6 SE installed.

Everything is clean, it's virus free, no worms. I've checked everything on the PC, I've scanned for spy-ware ad-ware, viruses, worms. I've used multiple methods: Norton, Ad-aware, Stinger, Symantec tools.

I randomly get sudden restarts on my PC. It does so without any notification, there's no Blue Screen of Death, even though I've unchecked the Automatically Restart option in the Startup/Recovery settings.
I operate the PC behind a router via wireless PCMCIA card. Drivers for the network card are certified by Microsoft.

I've put up 3 firewalls, 1 hardware from router, 1from Norton Internet, and 1 one from Windows built-in.
I get no error reports after the restart is done, no error dialogs, nothing.

I've carried a system reformat, on my C: drive, leaving the 😧 drive intact.

The problem is nothing to do with overclocking, I run even little programs at once (like Winamp and IE) and it still reboots suddenly. It's nothing do to with the power outlet, I've switched the VAIO plug to another socket and it still reboots.

At first, the problem happened like every 72 hrs or so, but now it's very unpredictable. However, it doesn't restart in loops, i.e. it doesn't restart after seconds or after minutes. It's quite random.

Could it be that some virus/worm is hidden in my 😧 partition in my system volume folders?

I have 2 others PCs, 1 desktop and 1 laptop, and they don't the problem, so I'm not sure whether it's anything to do with a worm, because it'll spread over the network.

Do you think it's all because that the VAIO is defective? Or is it a software issue?

Please anyone help me out here, this is seriously urgent.

[mappyuk]

I wonder if the K series are all flawed. You might have read about my problems with the K115Z which freezes for no reason. It is with Sony for the second time and they are taking no responsability for it. Restore it and use it and if it still freezes get them to look at it. Are you sure it isnt overheating?

[Kei]

It's not overheating. I've a maintenance tool that checks the HDD temperature and the S.M.A.R.T. attributes.

[kee-lo_]

Good call.
Watching out for SMART problems is probably very wise.

[Kei]

I booted up BartPE, but only got to run the CheckDisk and Stinger. I don't have McAfee VIrus Scan, so that didn't run. From the checkdisk there were no errors, and from the Stinger scan, there were no viruses and worms. Nothing.
Does the stinger program scan the system volume folders? I mean does it scan the folders where the system restore files are located?

Or is a virus/worm hiding behind my 3rd partition, the main recovery option OS partition?!

[robpaxton]

The stinger program only checks for certain viruses. Is the system stable after booting from the CD? If the restarts have stopped occurring then there is probably a problem with your Windows install be it a virus, driver, software, or configuration problem. The easiest option in this case is probably a software recovery.

If the restarts are still occuring then I would suggest that the hardware is faulty.

[kee-lo_]

Its not easy to diagnose at all.

[Kei]

During the BartPE bootup there were restarts. But this duration was pretty short, only used for about 40-45 mins. I can't really be sure. The restart perhaps just didn't restart during the BartPE because it already restarted before that other evening at around 7PM, when I booted up BartPE at around 12AM on the next day.
However, I'm not certain again but, when I'm offline the restart doesn't occur. Like that evening (19/08/04) at around 6:30PM I deliberately close my connection from the internet and started playing Counter-strike instead just to test whether the restart will restart. And as I expected it didn't!
What I did after I closed off my connection, was I restarted the machine manually to refresh the RAM etc. and started up Counter-strike, I played for like 2 hours or so, and it did not restart. It is definitely not overheating because I'm running the PC throughout 11:10AM to about 8:40PM (i.e. when I stopped Counter-strike).

I decided to close off my connection at 6:30PM because at that time my PC would already ran for over 6 hours, then run something offline like Counter-strike that would take up processing power, this may act as a test of whether it's caused by something with the internet connection.

I did this because on the other day (18/08/04) I ran the PC for over 8 hours straight without restart, and it restarted by itself just about 8 hrs 10mins after starting up or something. At that time I was running MSN Messenger, IE, and Winamp.

However, that evening (19/08/04) at around 10:15PM the PC restarted itself again!!! It was like 40mins after I reconnected to the internet. And I was only running Easy CD-DA extractor 7.091(labelling and extracting CDs along with the CDDB service) and Azureus.
I'm not sure if the cause has to do with my VAIO being connected to the internet, but it's just that this restart problem has only happened when I'm connected to the internet. But the thing is, is that I'm rarely offline so I can't really discriminate between the variant as being the cause or not. Unless I try not connecting to the internet at all for like 3 days and see if it restarts by itself that way, then that may reveal some truth.

Oh yea...btw I've closed off all ports that are related to the Blaster and Sasser worms and its variants i.e. TCP 135, 4444, 5444, 9996 etc. Don't know if that helps...

Well guys what do you think?

[kee-lo_]

Are you using the wireless function on this notebook?

[Kei]

Yeah, for me I can't connect to the router by wire because I don't want to have wires trailing on the floor, and also I've no ethernet cable, plus I've already got a PCMCIA card, so better use that.

I've got the Netgear WG511 54mbps wireless network card. The drivers installed are certified by Microsoft.
It's strange because the laptop like restarts after it's been on for a long time. Like 7-8+ hrs.

Could the wireless connection be a variable to this restart problem?

[kee-lo_]

Yes more thank likely.

Try other cards, lets see if this has anything to do with wireless.