Came back from Bootcamp to a crazy computer.

[BuzzKillington]

It will randomly flash the BSOD then black out.

The computer is still running instead of shutting off so I have to force shutdown and start it back up... the crazy thing is is that it automatically goes back to whatever I was doing. I was listening to music on Pandora and after it booted it opened up FF and started playing music. WTF?

I JUST reformatted on squeaky clean drives (ran wipedrive over night) thinking it was because my Windows 7 beta expired.

Any ideas?

[slaveofconvention]

Restarts like that fall into one of two categories - like almost all problems - either hardware or software. The software side of things is almost endless - so I'm not even going there - especially as you said you already did a wipe and reinstall so it's very unlikely to be the problem.

When it comes to hardware, the 4 most common causes of random restarts are blown caps on the motherboard, RAM, PSU, or overheating.

Open up the case and have a look at the caps on the motherboard - most of them have a couple of seams in the tops of them and any sign of a (usually dark brown) liquid coming out of the top of them is a bad sign and almost certainly your problem.

If not, the next thing I'd suggest you download the .iso for memtest86+ and boot from that to confirm or eliminate the possibility of a RAM issue.

Third test, download and install OCCT, this will allow you to run a 100% CPU utilisation test for as long as you want - this will help you to eliminate or confirm an overheating issue. As a side benefit, it also monitors PSU voltages, so you'll be able to tell, to a degree, if the PSU is healthy. I'd point out that on my motherboard, my 12v rail appears to vary from 1.5 to 9 volts when a multimeter confirms a rock solid 12.18v - but again, it might help confirm or eliminate an issue with the PSU.

If none of that works, errrrrr lol - good luck....

[Drum Thumper]

First thing I would check would be the PSU. Specifically look at these things:

Wattage
Age
Wattage Load required by motherboard/RAM/HD/Opticals and Fans

When building, I tend to buy a PSU that is 200% more than what I need so that degradation won't come into play until said machine is well past its' useful life.

There are several really good wattage calcs on the net. Just google it.

Edit: just reread your post. Might want to check to see if all your connections from the PSU to the board and drives are good and tight as well. Ditto the plug going from the wall to the PSU.

[BuzzKillington]

Thanks for the tips guys. The worst part about it is it's a laptop so damn near any hardware failure and I'm screwed haha.