Hahaha, okay, I genuinely like StackOverflow but the comments there read like a parody.<p>The guy is asking for hypotheses and some guy is responding with hypotheses but then there are like two other guys who are all like "we don't know, this could be anything", one of whom goes up to the answerer and tells him his hypothesis is just guesswork.<p>Classic. These guys won't help or stay out of the way. Just injecting themselves in the conversation to be annoying.
Besides static (which seems likely - perhaps there is an issue with the grounding), I can think of two other explanations:<p>1) the computer is near a heater. The heat both attracts the cat and overwhelms the cooling enough to cause a crash.<p>2) The pc makes some noise (e.g. Coil whine) when it is about to crash, and the cat can hear that noise.
I would guess that if this user spent enough weeks or months to learn the skills and tracked this down to a precise root cause, he/she would find out it is a floating input on some IC.<p>It might have a pull up/down resistor that has failed, or it might have too high a resistance, or it might have been missed off the design all together.<p>The fact it's a reboot rather than a freeze says there's a good chance some software or firmware is aware of the reason for the reboot too. OS level errors typically leave records (eg. BSOD's). Firmware reboots often have some kind of debug mode that you can change to a system halt and inspect stuff over some debug port with the right equipment.
My cat grew up sitting on my lap while I worked. He has learned, over the years, that when he wants me to stop and all else has failed, he merely has to jump on the keyboard. All kinds of things have happened from that action. Keeping good backups, scripts, and being able to restore from them in under an hour is important with a cat around.
Cat probably has a bad case of fleas. Local bug density goes through the roof -> System crashes.<p>Give the cat a flea bath, run your debugger, and say 7 Halt, don't Catch Fire's.<p>You owe the oracle a tube of Advantage.
Old story on the internet with cats turning off computers/laptops rubbing them, people generally blame static -<p>(1964) A Post Office expert called to investigate TV interference in Derby found the trouble came from a house where an elderly woman was building up static electricity — by stroking her cat. <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107507113" rel="nofollow">https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107507113</a><p>But if the cat really isn't touching it then I'm dubious. I can't see how static electricity could turn off a computer from a foot away.
Seems like ESD. The ESD event makes electrostatic fields, means you don't need to discharge directly into the circuits, a discharge onto the case of the PC will create very strong fields also inside of it. These short term fields can cause components to get a bit out of whack.
I have caused two different computers to reboot on two different occasions due to touching the chassis and causing a (somewhat painful) static discharge. There were no other issues with the computers before or after. It's not surprising that they don't like momentary voltage surges going through their ground.
I got the same problem but with my chair. Whenever I stand up, the chance is about 50/50 that it instantly restarts... I swapped the chair and it doesnt happen anymore. Swap the cat, maybe that'll help.
Cats like warmth, and computers do not like warmth.<p>It's possible that the cat shows up when temperature is higher, and higher temperatures are more likely to make a computer crash.<p>When I was a kid, my cat would sit on top of the CRT monitor, because it was warm.