Computer shuts down on its own

[tammy1999]

When you press the power button, it sounds like it wants to start up, but then goes dead. And it is a good 15 minutes later before it will start up. There are 3 fans in the computer and I even leave the side open when I use it. I have a heat monitor on it and it never goes above the shut off point. Also, when I was doing the stress test on the video card, thats when it shut down, not when I was doing other stress tests on other parts. The stress test on the motherboard was fine too. I have always been able to change out drives and such on my computer but never a motherboard or video card or power supply. Are these difficult and should I do one thing at a time? I took my computer to a professional and of course, he didn't find anything wrong with it. It never did shut down on him! I have always thought this was either a heat problem or a bad video card. Thanks

 

[tammy1999]

I finally have given up on the shut downs and before I replace the motherboard, I tried something else. I did the scannow and half way through it, the computer shut down and I have tried 3 different times since then and can't get it to make it 1/4 of the way through without the computer shutting down. At this point I am ready to reinstall windows, BUT I need to burn a few files on CD before I can do that and it won't let me do that either. When ever I put the cd in the driver, it shuts down. I have a brand new hd and was wondering if I can take out the mast hd and replace it with the new one and then start the Windows xp cd and reinstall windows. Do you have to have the new hd reconized before I can reinstall windows? And if that worked would be able to use the old master hd as the slave hd and get my files off of it or will there be a problem of the OS being on both drives? Then I can reformat the old drive after that. HELP!!!!

 

[mammikoura]

I have a brand new hd and was wondering if I can take out the mast hd and replace it with the new one and then start the Windows xp cd and reinstall windows.HELP!!!!

yes there should be no problems.

And if that worked would be able to use the old master hd as the slave hd and get my files off of it or will there be a problem of the OS being on both drives?

There shouldn't be too much problems with having the os on 2 harddrives, just go to bios and change the options so that it boots from the one u want it to boot from.

I haven't got time to read all of the posts in this thread, so this might have already been suggested.
But have u tried just reinstalling windows. U won't lose any files (the programs u have installed will not work without reinstalling them but all of the files should be as they were before the reinstall).

 

[Washington]

I'm not sure that reinstalling windows is the answer to your problem. It sounds more like a temperature problem than a software problem. Reinstalling windows won't make the pc run any cooler.

If the pc won't boot up for 15 mins after it shutting down then it definitely sounds temperature related. If it was a problem with windows then it would restart straight away.

Why not try a new cpu fan instead before you do anything hasty. They are pretty cheap and may be the answer to your problem.

Try downloading motherboard monitor from major geeks as this sits in your system tray and constantly updates you on the temperature of the cpu. If under stress the temerature suddenly rises then you know what the problem is.

 

[Tx3kgtman]

Im not the smartest on over heating on any of that sort but ive had a similiar problem. same thing but it took like 2 mins before i could finally reboot. and it happened at the same times "when my video card was under a little load like watching a video or pulling up mas pictures. i suspected right away it to be my video card because thats the only time it happened is when i brought up some heavy pictures and video. i dont really understand why everyones pushing the cpu overheating she said she ran prime95 for a while with no shutdowns but then ran a stress test on her video card and there it shutdown. tammy i would make sure your video card its running prop. mabye install new drivers. or mabye in your case since you dont do much of anything but run applications and not gaming and such. buy you a new gfx card.. a cheap one that will suit what you need.

 

[tammy1999]

I thought resintalling windows would erase the hd?

 

[tammy1999]

Tx3.......now since I tried to run the scannow, it will shut down on me. I have to get windows back in working order first before I can do anything. Also, after I ran the video test the 1st time and it shut down, I ran it again later and it worked fine. I am just really confused here about everything. Just when I figure out whats going on, something else happens.

 

[mammikoura]

I thought resintalling windows would erase the hd?

formating does. Reinstalling just replaces the windows files.

 

[Tx3kgtman]

Tx3.......now since I tried to run the scannow, it will shut down on me. I have to get windows back in working order first before I can do anything. Also, after I ran the video test the 1st time and it shut down, I ran it again later and it worked fine. I am just really confused here about everything. Just when I figure out whats going on, something else happens.

then seems like you really might have a software problem? Did you change anything from before it ever started happeneing and now that it is?

 

[tammy1999]

I have had this computer for about 3 years now and it has been shutting off and on since I have had it just a few times. But this past year its getting worse and worse. I had a tech look at it for a few days and of course, he said there wasn't anything wrong with it and it never shut down with him. I have always thought it was a heat problem, but when you have monitors running in the back ground and they never go up but maybe a couple degrees at a time, I don't know. Like I said, I just have to get windows running right now and I am really affraid to just reinstall windows and my files are gone. I have been trying to burn them to a cd, but the computer would shut down in the middle of it.