thank you all. the comp doesn't restart. it just shuts down. completely. it's a laptop, so i know giving it to render something with a light dome IS pushing it, but it's been able to pull it off before. there's no error messages in the administrative tasks or whatever it's called, which leads me to believe that it's a hardware issue of some importance. drac (ang, from the sound of it, your sound card is screwed up)