My bloody PC keeps shutting itself down and it's really bugging me know, wondering if you have any ideas.

Specs -

Athlon XP2100

1gb RAM - 2x 512/333

2x Maxtor 160gb HD

Liteon CD Burner

LG DVD Burner

Aluminium Case

Decent 450w power supply

Plenty of cooling

XP SP2

It seems to be when I put any sort of load on it, last time it went when I tried to up a 34mb file to my web space, time before was trying to copy contents of a CD to the HD.

This initially lead me to think cooling but the case is stone cold, dust free and the filters are clean.

The board is an MSI which has the LED Diag bracket in the back. This sometimes reports a memory problem when I try to reboot after a failure. It will never reboot after a failure it just fails the POST. I have to turn the power off at the socket for a minute.

Dodgy memory chip, or memory slot on the board? I had similar symptoms with my athlon 750 which is now dead anyway.

Any time load was put on it, in my case it spinning up a CD, it just shut down.

Can you do a thorough memory test. My clue came up when it posted and the counting up RAM check only reached 128mb when I had 196 - turned out to be a dodgy 64mb chip

Has this machine had a memory upgrade done on it?

Sounds about right J.

I might look around, I'm sure you can get utilities to check the memory.

I know it's a bit out of date and a replacement wouldn't be too expensive but it (normally) does everything I ask of it and it's more than fast enough.

Has this machine had a memory upgrade done on it?

Built it myself, both chips are same manufacturer.

check the event log and see if it's got any useful info in it (control panel..administrative tools).

download memtest and create a boot floppy - see if that sees any memory errors.

if it's not that, borrow a PSU and swap out.

i'd put money on the memory, though.

is it an nforce2 board like a K7N2xxx? these are *really* picky about RAM.

what should i see in the event log to give me a clue?

It's a VIA chipset.

I've cleared the event log now - we'll see if anything comes of it.

I doubt I can help much as I know nothing.

By process of elimination, a PC shutting down by itself is often a symptom of being got at, especially if it happens with no warning messages beforehand. Or do you mean the computer hangs?

Are you happy that you are protected and are virus, hijack, bug free etc? Have you tried to restore to an earlier point to remove any possible rogue downloads?

Does it happen only when you are downloading big files, as you seem to be saying?

Does it occur with a particular site which you can name in case others have knowledge re that site?

It doesn't sound like overheating to me from what you've said. If it's virus free, do you have sufficient resource and disk space for what you are doing?

Just throwing these into the air really.

Regards

Mo

I think I am trojan etc free. I sit behind a netgear router and netgear modem router and I have up to date Norton AV running.

No adverse spyware that I can find, I am convinced it's hardware.

Tried running that memtest - how longs hould I leave it on for?? Did one pass with no errors.

Despite the case feeling cool, if you haven't already checked the CPU heatsink, I would still take the fan off the CPU and clean the heat sink fins with a paintbrush/vacuum. It cured my PC of same problem.

I would check the PSU.

Also if running windows xp

Right click my computer -> choose properties. Go to advanced tab. Click on settings for start up and recovery. Untick automatically restart.

If it blue screens with a stop error this will give you a chance to read it and it should point to a file.

chances are looking through the event log it will only give you a message about the last shutdown being unexpected.

I don't get the BSOD it just powers down.

I don't get the BSOD it just powers down.

if its turning off its going to be one of two things.

1.) something is overheating. CPU or something. I know of a certain company who had motherboards that had cheap resistors on them that would expand and seap. This would cause thermal shutdowns. it was dell so shouldnt be the same on yours.

2.) PSU is faulty.

Well it looks like I may have made a breakthrough.

Stripped it down earlier and gave it all a good hoover out - pretty clean anyway.

Did fing that the thermal grease was a bit poor so renewed that and I've managed to do some of the stuff it wouldn't do before.

Stu, I'd get something like speedfan here and monitor your various temps / voltages whilst it's in use.

Sounds as if you are able to replicate it, although you've probably fixed the problem now anyway

I used to run something like that Xav. I also had an app with the mainboard but I've not been installing them lately, a combination of the extra cooling etc I've not bothered.

Gonna install it now and see what's doing.

Looks like I spoke too soon - bloody thing has just shut down on me.

Speedfan reports 37 and 44'C for the board so not too hot at all.

Stu,

Take both ram chips out and boot the box. I won't boot for obvious reasons.

Put I chip in and and run it for a bit. If it shuts down again put the chip in another slot.

Repeat that with the other chip. that will narrow down that the memory or slot is or is not defective.

Cheers

Lee