Well, I am assuming you don't participate in illegal filesharing through torrents or P2P sites, and you are not "click-happy" on unsolicited links, popups and downloads. Therefore MSE is just fine, as long as you otherwise keep Windows and MSE current. Regardless of your security program of choice, everyone should have a secondary scanner just to double check you (the user is always the weakest link in security) or MSE didn't let something slip by. I recommend
Malwarebytes for that. The Free version is fine for that and is the setup I used for years when I was running Windows 7. Once the free trial period expires, you will need to manually run the scan - I recommend once a week, or whenever you want to verify nothing "funny" is going on. If considering a paid security program, Malwarebytes Premium is a good choice because it works well along side MSE (or the new Windows Defender should/when you move to Windows 10).
It appears that motherboard came out about 4 years ago so it could be the CMOS battery is failing. Because they only cost a couple dollars at Wal-mart or Best Buy, little is lost if not the problem (Best Buy will recycle the old one too :)). These are CR2032 "wafer" batteries about the size and shape of a quarter. It will be inserted in a socket on your motherboard. Unplug the computer from the wall and touch bare metal of the case interior to discharge any static in your body BEFORE reaching in. Then carefully pry the old battery out. I use one of those wooden cuticle sticks. Observe the polarity (+ and -) before removing.
If the interior is full of heat trapping dust, now would be a good time to blast it out with compressed air. Heat is a common cause for a computer to suddenly shutdown or reboot. So verifying all fans spin properly would be a good idea too.
Do not touch the new battery with your bare fingers. Skin oils attract dust and can promote corrosion. I put a clean sock over my hand (remembering to touch bare metal before reaching in). Be sure to observe polarity again. The sockets are designed so the battery can go in only one way but excessive force can damage the socket.
Connect power and boot directly into the BIOS Setup Menu. This is done by tapping the Del key when prompted during the very early stages of the boot process. Removing the battery resets the BIOS (if it was not reset already due to the failing old battery). So reset the date and time then make sure your boot drive order is set so your boot drive is before other hard drives.
Then "Save and Exit" to boot normally. If all is good, then you should be good to go.
While many things can cause a computer to "
randomly shut down or reboot or sometimes would not start at all", including a failing motherboard, RAM, or CPU, a failing power is one of the most common causes. So if still having problems after replacing the battery, I would want to swap out power supplies with a known good supply since everything inside the computer depends on good, clean stable power. You definitely want to ensure good power before spending money on other parts.
When he started having issues he backed up all his important files so no problems there.
That was very smart! :thumbsup2: