Workstation restarts randomly - no BSOD - temperature/power supply problem?

Question

I have a high-end dual CPU workstation that has started rebooting itself several times per day. It has no history of doing this - it just started in the last few days. It hasn't had any hardware updates, or even had the case opened recently.

There is no blue screen/STOP error and nothing in the Windows logs to indicate a software/OS error. There is no "your computer recovered from a serious error" message or prompt to start in safe mode.

The only pattern is that the restarts increase in frequency through the day; maybe staying up for a few hours to begin with, then restarting every few minutes at the end of the day.

So I am thinking its some hardware part wearing out, and the increasing frequency leads me to think its temperature related.

So, if I was to start swapping parts out, what should I start with, i.e. the most likely culprit?

Answer 1

My wife's laptop had a similar issue recently. We opened it up and reseated all of the cards and cables. That fixed it.

Open the computer, pull out a cable and put it back in again, then do the same with every other cable and card and memory stick. Also give it a gentle vacuum or dusting while you're in there.

Answer 2

Turned out it was blown capacitors on the motherboard and/or in the power supply. Good description of the issue here.