New computer keeps turning off on it's own

I am new to this type of stuff, so cut me some slack if I forget to put information in my post.

I bought a Gateway in February, and in April it started turning off randomly on its own until one day it turned off for good, and eventually after restarting it various times I received the BSOD. I brought it to Geek Squad because I bought it at best buy, and they replaced the hard drive at no cost. Now it's happening again (right on schedule, two months later).. and I haven't received the BSOD yet, but it's giving me the warning signs like what happened before.

Not sure if this is helpful at all but the Hard Drive they replaced was a Western Digital 1 TB HD.

I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium x64.. I also have ran Spybot Search & Destroy in safe mode, and it was able to fix all of the problems it found. I also have Avast Antivirus.

One more issue - I can't download anything, so if you're going to forward me to something to download I won't be able to do it. Anytime I download something it disappears, and I've searched the entire drive and nothing. It shows it download, but won't let me open the containing folder or anything.

Thank you for your assistance, if you need any more information please let me know.

 

I'm not sure about your hardware troubles but the Geek Squad can figure that out as it's warrantied still.rolleyes As to your downloads, check C:\users\your name\downloads. That's where downloads go by default in Vista.

 

To catch the BSOD, you will have to disable auto restart, go to Control panel/System and Maintenance/System/Advanced system maintenance/Startup and recovery/settings/uncheck Auto restart. The next time you get a BSOD, it will stay on the screen so you can copy the error messages there and OK out. At the top, you will see something like IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL to and there will be another one on the bottom which will say something like 0x0000007(xxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxx,xxxxxxxx,xxxxxxxxx). We only need the first part outside the parentheses.

BTW, welcome aboard.

 

the downloads are not there, trust me I've been through hell trying to figure that out. :mad

I watch them download, then I watch them disappear. I've also changed the location to my downloads to the desktop and it does the SAME thing.

It's just so weird because my computer will stay on for hours sometimes, or maybe just 5-10 minutes and turn off again. I haven't received the BSOD yet this time, though.


ohh, and the last time they didn't do anything but replace my HD and said they wanted $600 to restore all of my information on my HD. I just don't understand why this has happened twice in 4 months!

 

Rip-off arstists! I would make backups of anything important on a daily basis to a CD or DVD, a re-writable disc(s) is good for this as I wouldn't even trust doing a backup on a second hard drive at the moment.

The 'Geek Squad' is considered as a joke organization amongst the community here, oh and have I mentioned that they are rip-off artists! Have them replace every bit of hardware while it's on warranty. I know it's a pain for you but it's the cheapest way before the warranty runs out. Once you can get the BSOD info, at least we'll have a hint of what might be wrong and where to look next besides giving you some ammo to bring to them.

 

That's funny, it was already turned off.

This is getting very irritating, It just shut down on me three times in the past half hour, and all I'm doing is (don't laugh) playing bejeweled on Facebook! I just don't understand how I could have two HDs go bad in four months! Especially this being a brand new computer! :confused

And about Geek Squad, I absolutely hate it there. They are so rude and treat me like I'm an idiot, but the only reason why I go there is because I don't know anything about fixing internal things on a computer and it's free because it's covered under warranty.

 

No, I won't laugh at all. Not that I need to as I have no idea of what 'bejewelled' is, hey you like what you like right?. At any rate, since they replaced the hard drive, the next likely culprit is the Power supply in not giving you enough oomph. If it was me, that was what I'd check first given your circumstances.

There are some great hardware folks here, they might have a better idea than I. I hope we beat those jerks into the ground, sorry as it's personal.:-D

 

Would a power supply cause HD to crash? I know when I brought it in last time, they couldn't get it to turn on either. I mean they could, but then it would turn off as soon as they got the BSOD again, just like it did at home. Then they ran some diagnostics and had to send it away to somewhere else, and they replaced the HD. When GS called me they said it was something like a "level 3 crash" or something stupid, and that it would be $600 to recover everything on there (like I mentioned before) where as when I first brought it in, it was only $100.

 

Well Augie, despite both of our hatred toward Geek Squad I felt it best to take advantage of my warranty and bring it to them today. The guy that took my computer made me feel uncomfortable that I was putting it into his hands to repair it, because he couldn't even figure out how to turn it on.LOL

Sigh.

 

I can identify with your frustration.

For four years I was purchasing form factor computers (from Best Buy) until last year when I had to take my Gateway in four times for a problem that was never fixed.

The following truth is not meant to pile onto BB (I vented my anger long ago) but as a matter of record, the run around I received in the two stores I had to deal with gave me the courage to build my own computer.

To any who will listen, if you must purchase a pre-built computer, I cannot stress enough how important it is to also buy the added protection/replacement warranty.

That was what forced them to replace the Gateway.

 

Buying the protection plan was? I think if this happens to me again, I'm going to do what that Domluc said and talk to a manager about the Sale of Goods act. I shouldn't have to be forced to buy anything (a protection plan) to get a replacement of an obviously defective item. If the manager won't do it, then I'll contact Home Office and see where that goes.

By the way, an update on my side: The guy at Geek Squad said ":booger Uhhh we can't uhh find anything about your HD.... uhhh we have to do something to it that most of the time wipes it clean..and uhh if that doesn't work, then we uhh have to send it away." and I was like "well they replaced the hard drive last time I came in so I don't think it's the hard drive" then he responds with "well uhh its really hot and gateways have a bad motherboard, so the motherboard could be causing your HD to crash..but uhhhh it hasn't turned off on me yet :yum"



oooohh God. I'm in for a long one.rolleyes

 

"and gateways have a bad motherboard" seems to be their fallback position because that's almost the exact statement I got from several associates the four times I dealt with them until they finally replaced the product.

BTW. The motherboard was replaced at least three of the four times it was "sent out".

 

Muahahahaha, 'we have to do something to it which wipes it clean'. Yeah jerk, it's called a factory re-install that anyone can do by themselves and you charge for this crap work?! rolleyes roflmao sigh Good luck to you on your odyssey man.

 

ha whenever someone tells me to buy warranties on an item, i'm like if your products so good then i dont need a warranty, right? or i say maybe i shouldn't be buying your product if you insist that it needs a warranty it must not be good, anyway thats just me, maybe i should be buying warranties :confused

anyway i also hate geek squad they tricked my mom into spending $50 on her new laptop to backup the os and it was supposed to take 1 hour but it ended up taking 4, and i could of easily backed up the os