Computer randomly restarted twice

[jmt356]

Over the past week, my computer restarted without any warning. Upon logging in, there was no pop-up window indicating a system error, as usually happens when my computer has randomly shut down in the past.

What can be causing this and how can I prevent it from recurring?

[HansV]

Have you set your computer to install updates automatically?

[jmt356]

I have not done so.

[HansV]

I'm afraid I can't tell what caused the restarts.

[Leif]

Check the event log and it might give you a clue.

[Rudi]

Do you have any cats in the house?

[Claude]

I've seen this behavior on a few systems over the years, and, according to the event logs, most were caused by a system drivers. I did a system restore, removing the latest windows updates followed by reinstalling the updates, in most cases it fixed the problem. The two occasions where it didn't fix it turned out to be hardware errors.

Are you running windows 8 or 8.1 ?

[Jay Freedman]

Besides faults in drivers (which usually do leave traces in the event logs), I've seen restarts in a couple of hardware-related issues. One was the result of a dying power supply, and the other occurred when a fan failed and the CPU overheated. Both of these were hard to track down but cheap to fix.

[jmt356]

I am running Windows 8.