"Turn Off Computer" Reboots Instead of Shutting Down

I bought this Dell Dimension 8300 about 3 months ago which came pre-loaded with Windows XP Service Pack 2. Everything was working fine until now but don’t know what went wrong suddenly. Now whenever I turn off my computer it restarts automatically.

I haven’t made any changes to the system in last month. When I go to Start Menu and click Turn Off, it seems to be working fine and killing the process, then log off then shutting Down message. But at last, it reboots automatically after 2 to 3 seconds. Any help would be appreciated.

Hello Richar, There are several Microsoft KB Articles which i will suggest you to go through for this problem,. It will help you out.

Windows XP Restarts Unexpectedly or Restarts When You Shut Down the Computer http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;320299

Resources to Help Troubleshoot Shutdown Problems in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;Q308029

"Windows Shutdown & Restart Center Troubleshooting in 15 Steps" http://aumha.org/win4/a/shutdown.htm

Do you find anything listed about the same in your Event Viewer Log? If yes, please copy and paste the same here. Apart from this i will suggest you to better disable Automatic restart because it seems to be Windows Problem and if you disable the AUto restart you should get the Bluescreen with actual error message. Here is how you can disable restart:

• Right-click 'My Computer' and click on 'Properties'.
• Click the 'Advanced' tab and in the 'Startup and Recovery' section, click on 'Settings'.
• In the 'System failure' section, check the boxes 'Write and event to the system log' and 'Send an administrative alert', but unckeck the box 'Automatically restart'.
• This will cause the system to blue screen on critical errors.

Thanks for the help Wooody. I went to diable Auto restart but it was already done. The check box was already unchecked but still the system was restarting. And as far as Event Viewer log is concerned, I can see few error messages listed over there , but I don't know how to interpret them anyway. Any help?

Among those error message, is there any error in Application or System at the time(s) the computer is restarting? If yes, you need to copy paste that itself here.