"random restarts" but nothing showing up in event log
 

I have been tasked with fixing my cousins computer. He has told me that he expierences sudden restarts when using his computer. I have checked the event log as well as the BSOD dump files but have seen nothing that would indicate a crash or restart. Is their some other way I can check t see where this problem is coming from? The laptop is running on windows xp

Sudden restarting on an XP machine would normally leave behind evidence of an unclean shut down, which would be remarked on in the logs. Failing that, if the disks are formatted NTFS, there would be evidence of uncommitted transactions in the low-level file structures... but you probably won't get much more than confirmation of an unclean dismount from that. So...

The first thing to do would be to replicate the problem for yourself. For which you'll need prolonged physical access to the laptop. That way the "is it happening" or "when does it happen" questions can be resolved by observation; the best way to see the cause of the problem(s).

Possible causes that come to mind are: some sort of over-heat protection shutting it down (clogged vents, broken fans, etc. or even where the laptop is used, could cause the CPU to reach the BIOS configured trigger temperature), unstable power supply (though being a laptop this shouldn't be a problem if the battery is okay; I'd check the battery to be sure), or a memory corruption/module unseating. That's just guess work though, in the absence of more information and the odd lack of recorded events... I think overheating is most likely, followed by power, and then memory problems last (in my limited experience, with memory corruption, you normally get degradation/crash before a restart).

Not very clear... you don't see any dump files right?
If you don't see any dump files it might be because the swapfile is turned off. For the Windows to record the BSOD into dump file it need to have swapfile on.