my computer shuts off and i dont know why

okay, for the past couple months, my computer has been shutting off on me for no reason. whether im playing a game, defragging, searching the net, etc...happens at all times. yesterday it shut off about 6 times and its really frustrating.

when it shuts off, my power button blinks and i have to unplug it til the power button stops blinking. then i have to plug it back in and turn it back on. its been driving me nuts. im not quite sure what it is. i dont think its the battery, and i dont think its the fan. ive been told to do a 'power drain' but have no idea how to do it or if thats what it needs.

so if anyone can help, i would truly appreciate! :-D

 

So this is a Laptop? and shutting down when plugged in to mains?

It sounds like it is overheating and the BIOS is kicking in to protect your hardware.
You could install SpeedFan or everest to check out your temps.
http://majorgeeks.com/SpeedFan_d337.html
http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Laptops do get hot and good airflow / cooling is important.
Either you need to look at what sort of surface you are using the laptop on in that it isn't obstructing the airflow through any of the vents.
or, it internally needs the dust cleaned from all the heat exchangers etc. If you haven't pulled apart a laptop before, get someone who knows whats up to do it for you as things can go very wrong.

All draining your battery does is reset the internal monitoring circuit on the battery, what that correlates to is how accurately windows can estimate your time left on batteries. Fully discharging them too often will shorten their lifespan.
If you use the laptop on mains all the time, I generally recommend removing the battery all-together as Lithium-Ion cells don't like being hot all the time. (also kills their capacity)
Bear in mind tho, that if the plug gets pulled accidentally then you'll lose whatever you were working on at the time.

 

actually its a desktop computer. windows xp

 

A really good piece of software you can check out is called PC Check. I have version 6. You can run a any test to single out which piece of hardware is bad. My suggestion would be power supply or bad memory. If you can't find or afford to get software i'd suggest being very careful and taking using a single stick of memory at a time to see if the problem still occurs. If so then try another power supply if you have one handy.

 

Sorry laptop... Duh.. Scratch the idea of new power supply. And a power drain may help. There is software for that as well LMAO, software for everything... Google power drain laptop and you'll find it.

 

Oh ok, sorry for the confusion, you referenced a battery and I assumed.

It still could be a heat issue, see what Everest has to say about it.

Otherwise it could be related to your power supply... getting old and tired or underpowered for your system?
have you installed any new hardware recently?

 

no i havent. i try and dust it off as much as i can and i check to make sure the fan is working and what not but it still shuts off.

 

And testing your RAM wouldn't go astray either

http://majorgeeks.com/MemTest_d350.html

 

i did download it and used it. it said that i had like 300 something errors. im just not sure thats the problem though! :-o

 

so, you are sure its not a heat issue, your power supply is fine and Memtest reports 300 errors...

I'd start by getting some new RAM

 

i dont think its a heat problem. i can leave my computer off for 3 days and when i turn it back on, in the middle of what im doing, it would shut off.

im not sure how much ram i have. how do you know my power supply is fine??

 

my computer just shut off on me twice. its getting to be ridiculous. could it be my fan??

 

i just did a windows update and as it was updating, my computer shut off. i just wish i knew if it was the power or not

 

wooooow!! 300 errors!! replace your RAM dude.