computer randomly turns off

[rsoxhater]

I'm having a problem here with a two month old computer. When the person is working on it, it randomly shuts off. I have opened it up, reset the connections and made sure everything was tight

As far as the surge protector, the monitor and a printer are plugged into the same strip, and when the CPU shuts off, they do not, so that leads me to believe that its not the strip.

Is there a setting in windows 2000 that can help further diagnose this problem, or a setting that might cause the computer to shut down?

Over the course of an 8hr day, it happens about 5-6 times.

There are six other computers in this office of the same type and model, and they all came from the same ghost image.

I'm honestly at a loss here. If anyone has any tips for me to try out I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[cdogg]

Is this a name brand PC? If not, then perhaps the power supply cannot handle the load being requested by the rest of the system.

When the PC shuts down, does Windows 2000 look like it's going through the shutdown process (showing the logoff prompt and that your settings are being saved)? If not, then it's probably not a Windows setting.

Random shutdowns like the one you've described normally point to one of three things:

1) Overheating (CPU might not be correctly mounted or the air flow in the case might be extremely poor)
2) Bad or underpowered power supply
3) Faulty motherboard

It could be something else as well, but these are the most common listed in the order that I would check/replace.

~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle

 

[rsoxhater]

Cdogg - It is a HP PC. When it turns off, it just shuts off completely. No shutdown screen, no nothing.

I will double check the inside of the computer again tomorrow morning before she gets to work.

Thanks,
Patrick

 

[battmain]

Check the fan to the power supply. When the fan gets clogged with dust or goes bad, the power supply will overheat then shutdown. Same for the CPU fan mentioned before. I'm curious if both the monitor and the base shut off at the same time and what is the condition of the power lights. Also replace the power cable from another machine.

If there is no message when it shuts off, that usually rules out the RPC security issue.

 

[ski]

It can also be caused by bad memory.
You can check the memory with Memtest-86.

 

[rsoxhater]

It turned out when to be there was a wire blocking the power supply fan from running.

I replaced the hard drive two weeks ago, and when I pushed everything back together (inside is completely modular) one of the edges of the wire was just inside the cage of the fan stopping it from running. It happened when I snapped the CDROM and floppy drive back down overtop of the power supply fan. It must of just barley pushed that wire in there, and there was no way for me to tell til now until it started over heating.

My own error, but these slim tower desktop models do not help, lol. Everything is just so packed in there.

Thanks for all the help guys, very much appreciated.

 

[ski]

Nice detective work.
Glad to hear that you got it solved, and thanks for posting back with how you fixed it.