PC Issues with a bit of a long story, please help

[very deli reef]

Try prime95, use the "blend" mode torture test. If the computer can successfully run that for a few hours with no errors, it's highly unlikely that the computer will crash while running applications such as Word.

[KeyboardDemon]

I did think about Prime as this stresses the CPU, but the PC was restarting while he was using Word or surfing the net so in the end I thought I'd just leave it playing videos from Youtube, and so far I have had it playing for about 3 hours with no issues. I guess I'll just have to try editing a large 650 page word document to see if that makes it crash, as that is what he was doing when the random restarts started.

[very deli reef]

The reason I suggested the "blend" mode is because in addition to stressing the CPU, it also uses a fair chunk of RAM. The problem with seeing if the computer crashes while editing a Word document is that it's not a stressful enough test.

Just run prime95 for a small amount of time; if the computer is still unstable enough to crash while editing a large Word document, it will probably give an error on the torture test exceedingly quickly. Consider running Memtest86+ to test the RAM.

[KeyboardDemon]

The reason I suggested the "blend" mode is because in addition to stressing the CPU, it also uses a fair chunk of RAM. The problem with seeing if the computer crashes while editing a Word document is that it's not a stressful enough test.

That's a really good idea, thanks for coming back to me with that explanation, I start that test right away, it gives the PC a good 8 to 10 hours before I'll be back in the room with it and if Prime is no longer running or reports errors I'll know I still have issues.

I'll post an update when I have one.

[KeyboardDemon]

I've been meaning to update this a lot sooner than now, so cleared the errors at startup, have no devices in device manager with issues and tested the rig using Prime95's torture test in blended mode for over 12 hours with no apparent stability issues so I think it is fair to say that this machine should be good to go. Will find out when my brother's father in law gets back to his book.

Thanks all.

[very deli reef]

I'm glad you got it sorted

[KeyboardDemon]

Thanks, I'm glad I stuck with it and didn't just opt for the immediate re-install option, but I will advise that my brother's father in law backs up all important work and looks at a fresh install as soon as possible.