My PC keeps shutting down.
Posted by: BillK on 10 January 2005
My PC keeps shutting down and then restarting after approx 12 mins. I'm running XP and have not loaded any new programmes (apart from a Microsoft mouse and driver a week prior to this problem).
Any ideas greatfully recieved.
Cheers
Any ideas greatfully recieved.
Cheers
Posted on: 11 January 2005 by BillK
Thanks for the respose.
Mike,
About a week ago I replaced a dodgy fan on the graphics card (very noisy), It fitted within the heatsink. My local PC shop thought it very unlikely to find an exact replacement and offered me a fan that screwed on top of the heatsink. I have fixed it on and it blows onto the chip, I guessed this was the right way round, maybe it should draw hot air off the heatsink?
All other fans are working fine.
Any clues?
Cheers.
Mike,
About a week ago I replaced a dodgy fan on the graphics card (very noisy), It fitted within the heatsink. My local PC shop thought it very unlikely to find an exact replacement and offered me a fan that screwed on top of the heatsink. I have fixed it on and it blows onto the chip, I guessed this was the right way round, maybe it should draw hot air off the heatsink?
All other fans are working fine.
Any clues?
Cheers.
Posted on: 11 January 2005 by bazz
My home PC started locking up and randomly rebooting itself a few weeks ago. Windows XP blamed the (Matrox) video driver.
A new video driver didn't help so I removed the RAM, video and network cards and sprayed them and the motherboard slots with contact cleaner. Haven't had a problem since.
A new video driver didn't help so I removed the RAM, video and network cards and sprayed them and the motherboard slots with contact cleaner. Haven't had a problem since.
Posted on: 11 January 2005 by Mike Hughes
BillK,
I suspect your fan may well be on the wrong way around although that's usually quite hard to achieve! The idea is that heat is dissipated away from the chip and the heat in the PC is then ushered out. You may want to check this out although I'm not going to promise that it is the solution.
However, the symptoms do fit rather nicely. You would then naturally associate a freeze with a new mouse driver and possibly draw the same conclusion when it crashes. When the video chip overheats the screen would indeed freeze and the PC would rarely be able to recover. Indeed it could send the PC temperature sufficiently high to cause a shutdown and then, when it has all cooled, you get a reboot. Kind of all makes sense from this distance, however, don't take my word for it. Just get it checked out.
Alternatively, the fan may be the right way round (more likely) but simply not up to the job. The net effect would be the same.
Bazz,
I note your comments and would observe that XP would blame the driver because that's the first thing that suffers and crashes. No more or less complex than that.
The likely cause of your issue could well have been the card not making good contact, drawing insufficient power to power the card and the fan and... crash!!!
Interestingly, the software techies go quiet at this point having seen "their" thread hijacked by answers rather than a grandstanding debate.
BillK, let us know who was right. I am happy to hold my hands up and learn if I'm wrong.
Mike
I suspect your fan may well be on the wrong way around although that's usually quite hard to achieve! The idea is that heat is dissipated away from the chip and the heat in the PC is then ushered out. You may want to check this out although I'm not going to promise that it is the solution.
However, the symptoms do fit rather nicely. You would then naturally associate a freeze with a new mouse driver and possibly draw the same conclusion when it crashes. When the video chip overheats the screen would indeed freeze and the PC would rarely be able to recover. Indeed it could send the PC temperature sufficiently high to cause a shutdown and then, when it has all cooled, you get a reboot. Kind of all makes sense from this distance, however, don't take my word for it. Just get it checked out.
Alternatively, the fan may be the right way round (more likely) but simply not up to the job. The net effect would be the same.
Bazz,
I note your comments and would observe that XP would blame the driver because that's the first thing that suffers and crashes. No more or less complex than that.
The likely cause of your issue could well have been the card not making good contact, drawing insufficient power to power the card and the fan and... crash!!!
Interestingly, the software techies go quiet at this point having seen "their" thread hijacked by answers rather than a grandstanding debate.
BillK, let us know who was right. I am happy to hold my hands up and learn if I'm wrong.
Mike
Posted on: 13 January 2005 by BillK
Thanks for all the help!
Last night I took off the cover and blasted inside with my electric fan heater set to cold. Works perfectly, in the mean time ran a virus check and thats fine. The PC is no longer shutting down. Now I just need to work out why it is overheating.
Cheers.
Last night I took off the cover and blasted inside with my electric fan heater set to cold. Works perfectly, in the mean time ran a virus check and thats fine. The PC is no longer shutting down. Now I just need to work out why it is overheating.
Cheers.
Posted on: 13 January 2005 by Mike Hughes
BillK,
My guess would be that either
- the fan ain't fitted right
- the fan is the wrong one (not powerful enough)
- the fan is not drawing sufficient power
Plenty to be getting on with there.
Anyone want to still talk about anti-virus software (arf!!!)?
Mike
My guess would be that either
- the fan ain't fitted right
- the fan is the wrong one (not powerful enough)
- the fan is not drawing sufficient power
Plenty to be getting on with there.
Anyone want to still talk about anti-virus software (arf!!!)?
Mike
Posted on: 13 January 2005 by seagull
The fan had a virus?
Posted on: 19 January 2005 by Mike Hughes
Bill,
Any progress?
Mike
PS: Seagull - more a case that the virus (theory) has fans!!!
Any progress?
Mike
PS: Seagull - more a case that the virus (theory) has fans!!!
Posted on: 20 January 2005 by BillK
Mike,
Well, in my last post I said about the fan heater etc, thought I was getting somewhere. The next day I turned on and the pc was only loading up the first page (the one that gives your pc specs and says 'memory loading') I decided to let my local pc repair man have a look. His opinion is that the Motherboard is knackered and because it is a P3, no longer available. Looks like it is going to have to be a new pc altogether.
If you think otherwise please let me know.
Cheers,
Bill.
Well, in my last post I said about the fan heater etc, thought I was getting somewhere. The next day I turned on and the pc was only loading up the first page (the one that gives your pc specs and says 'memory loading') I decided to let my local pc repair man have a look. His opinion is that the Motherboard is knackered and because it is a P3, no longer available. Looks like it is going to have to be a new pc altogether.
If you think otherwise please let me know.
Cheers,
Bill.
Posted on: 20 January 2005 by Mike Hughes
Hi Bill,
I would never presume to think otherwise if someone has had a look at it then they will be far more informed than me sat at my PC (something we would do well to remember sometimes around here).
Only thing I would suggest is to see if you can get into the BIOS setup and set back to default. I have been told twice that I had a dying motherboard (before I had some idea of what I was doing!) and both times it turned out that a resetting and upgrading of the BIOS sorted it all out. They'd just been a little fried by a power surge.
Good luck.
Mike
I would never presume to think otherwise if someone has had a look at it then they will be far more informed than me sat at my PC (something we would do well to remember sometimes around here).
Only thing I would suggest is to see if you can get into the BIOS setup and set back to default. I have been told twice that I had a dying motherboard (before I had some idea of what I was doing!) and both times it turned out that a resetting and upgrading of the BIOS sorted it all out. They'd just been a little fried by a power surge.
Good luck.
Mike
Posted on: 20 January 2005 by Paul Hutchings
If it's failing at that point it could, potentially, be anything that's failed - memory, video card, CPU, power supply, add-in cards etc.
What Mike said about the BIOS is good advice, better yet see if there's a hard-reset jumper on the mainboard, though I'd expect any competant repair chap to try this.
There's a point where if they charge by the hour it probably would cost less to replace than to diagnose and repair.
When you say it was "only loading up the first page", what exactly do you mean - it just freezes, any error messages, any lights on the floppy/hard drive etc..?
Replacement machines are dirt cheap right now, though it depends on what you want to be able to use it for?
Have you been given anything in the way of prices/specs?
cheers,
Paul
What Mike said about the BIOS is good advice, better yet see if there's a hard-reset jumper on the mainboard, though I'd expect any competant repair chap to try this.
There's a point where if they charge by the hour it probably would cost less to replace than to diagnose and repair.
When you say it was "only loading up the first page", what exactly do you mean - it just freezes, any error messages, any lights on the floppy/hard drive etc..?
Replacement machines are dirt cheap right now, though it depends on what you want to be able to use it for?
Have you been given anything in the way of prices/specs?
cheers,
Paul