pc shuts down randomly

Help! My pc keeps shutting down on me - not reboot, totally off. Need to repowerup to get it back on. Started happening first during net surfing. Tried numerous McAfee virus scans, never makes it all the way through without shutdown. Same for disk defrag and disk check. I have disabled the auto restart. Today, system is shutting down more frequently and when I re power up now I'm not even making it through the disk check.
I'm running windows XP SP2. It's an AMD Athalon XP 2000 processor, 32mb ram.
Any suggestions would be appreciated - I'm lost at this point.
Thanks, CT

 

Do you get a blues screen just before the shutdown?Is your comp set write a minidump incase of software failure its on by default,the option is under dont auto restart

Check this file path for a mini dump check the time and date to make sure its at the time of the crash

C:\WINDOWS\Minidump

zip the file and include it with your next post

 

Well, its gone from bad to worse. Today the system shut down twice on a cold boot - it went into disk check by windows and only made it 1/3 of the way thru and then shut down. Also, the disk check was running very very slow - slower then I've ever seen it run. Also, no blue screen before shut down, just poof! gone!
I set the computer up to do a minidump (complete memory dump), made it crash and checked the minidump folder - its empty.
Now it crashes before I get the desktop fully loaded.
Is it possible my hard drive has gone bad or the ram memory is bad and causing this?
Anything else I should try?
Thanks, CT

 

Download and install the following program and update it.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=506

After installed reboot your computer and press F8 to boot into safe mode.

Once in safemode run the program and select everything it finds from running the scan.

 

this sounds like a worm mcafee warned me about. One that is targeted to NT and ME programs. But because XP uses these programs it's still vunerable to this worm.

It warns me that the worm can cause the computer to shut down spontaniously and randomly. If it is the worm, you may not be able to treat it. They might have some kind of program to remove it, I dont know for sure though.

It could also be your power supply. Recommend you take the computer in and ask them if they'll connect the computer to a new power supply. A short in the power supply could cause the computer to shut down whenever the short occurs.

 

Good advice squeaner,CT have you been using a firewall or antivirus?Your right arromes it could be a worm or the psu but we need to try and diagnose the problem with what we have available to us before we take it to get fixed and hopefully save a few bucks

CT set the dump file to small memory dump thats all thats needed,I have just noticed you only have 32mb of memory I'm suprised XP loads at all is this a typo?

Your harddrive could be on its way out,for diagnostics just keep booting into safe mode see if you run into the same problem if not we can be pretty sure its a software or driver problem

 

well, it's not the psu - installed a new one and still have the problem.

I downloaded Squeaner's suggestion -> majorgeeks\download.php?det=506.
When I doubleclick the .exe file for this in both regular boot and safe mode the initialization starts and then the computer shuts down. So running this does not appear to be an option at this point.

One thing strange - when I boot into safe mode I get a screen I've never had before saying:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\l_intl.nls
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\fonts\vgaoem.fon
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\AppPatch\drvmain.sdb
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\ACPI.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\WMLIB.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\pci.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\isapnp.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\pciide.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\pciidex.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\MountMgr.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\ftdisk.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\dmload.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\dmio.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\partmgr.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\volsnap.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\atapi.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\disk.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\Classpnp.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\fltmgr.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\fastfat.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\ksecdd.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\NDIS.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\sisagp.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows\system32\Drivers\mup.sys
there's some other ones before the first one but they scrolled off the top of the screen before I could read them.

I do have Microsoft Antispyware beta version 1.0.615 & Mcafee Virus - both with auto updating.

The ram was a typo before - its actually 256mb DDR

Still nothing in the minidump folder in c:\windows - in the setup for system & recovery the small dump path is %SystemRoot%\minidump. Is this correct? Am I not looking in the right place?

Any more suggestions? Thanks for your help so far. CT

 

hardware instibility will make the system randomly turn off too it dosent half to be a software problem ... have you checked to see if your system is overheating ?? maybe you shoudl run prime 95 or mem test to see if your system is stable.....maybe your PSU is getting weak ?

 

What you are seeing is safe mode loading the limited, but necessary drivers to run in "Safe Mode".

Roger

 

check your event viewer to see if there are any errors just before the shutdowns. That could give you some more info. Also if theres no errors there i would look into the motherboard. Had a mb that did similiar things and ended up replacing it.

 

Hi,
I have run across ppl with similar problems. Here is the crux of what I gathered.

1.
For a laptop, more often that not, it is due to overheating, and more often than not, it is the case if the computer just goes dead all of a sudden without telling you that it is going to reboot or give you like a countdown window till reboot.

To see if that is the case, try lifting your laptop up in the air, or putting it on top of two spaced books to lift it from the table so that there is air space beneath it, specially underneath where the fan inlets are.

If that is indeed is the case, it might be due to your power system getting less power to the fan system, or due the fan system getting old and not running properly. To solve it, you can either try buying one of those cooling pads or changing the fan in the laptop itself.

2.
If the computer gives you like a one minute warning with countdown that it is going to reboot, it can be due to a bot installing a program in your computer by exploiting a security flaw in Microsoft Windows. If you had beed good about getting all the security fixes microsoft puts online, or had a good firewall running all the time in your system you wouldnt have had that problem. There is a lot that can be done in that case to solve the problem and I'm ready to help you through that 5f that 5s the case.

Let me know your situation

 

It just came to me.

I had a problem of my computer rebooting and it was because I had a power supply with not enough Wattage. Could that be your problem possibly?

 

Thanks for all the help so far.

On the suggesting of checking the event viewer - where is this found and how do I access it.

On the suggestion on checking if the system is overheating, how would I do this?

What is prime 95? How would I run it?

Also, how do I run a memory test?

Is there any way to test the motherboard for problems?

Also, on the pc shutting down, there is no warning, just poof! gone!
This is a desktop system not a laptop.

Sorry if these are basic questions - I'm not the best at pc diagnostics.

Also, as I mentioned yesterday, the power supply is brand new - installed yesterday and the problem did not go away. i even upgraded to a 500W supply fromm a 300W (it was on sale). It's possible the one I bought is bad out of the box - hopefully not.

Thanks for everyone's help so far. CT

 

Was this problem occuring with the old power supply before you upgraded?

 

Yes, I had the same problem with the old power supply.

 

CT,
This problem might be as simple as bad HDD or MB.
From the info. you posted, you already checked PSU, and RAM.
Let me suggest simple/basic ways to test the problems.
To check hardware/over heating problem, turn on your PC and go straight into bios. (most likely, hit Delete key, F1, or F2 depending on your MB)
Within the bios, you will probably see "Hardware Monitor" section. This will tell you your cpu's temp, HDD temp(some models), fan speeds, and so on... If the temp keeps going up, obviosly, you've got heat problem. If temp is stable, then we move to next step. - oh, you should watch this for at least 30 minutes. Next step would be checking your HDD. If you have spare HDD, replace you existing one and install fresh copy of your OS (winXP), and observe. If you can run your PC without any problem, I would install the old HDD as slave and run all the scans - virus, error checking, defrag... I had very similar problem and I found some bad sectors on old HDD.
If this fails, we move to MB. Try to download and flash your MB with new BIOS (check your MB website for HOW TO). If you can do this without any problems, 90% your MB is fine.
In order to check/solve the software, virus, worm, trojan, incompatibility issues within OS, you can simply reinstall WinXP.

Good Luck and let me know.

 

Thanks for your help. I believe the problem is a heat problem. I took the side panel off the computer allowing better air circulation and the problem seems to have gone away. I have successfully run virus scans and did a disk check and then defrag. Seems to be running ok now. I will probably add another fan to help with the cooling.
Thanks again - CT