Compaq DeskPro Power Problem ?

Well the term "recently" always begs the question of "what changed". This analysis takes into account hardware, software, and often overlooked surrounding environment, did someone plug a massive copier into the same outlet.

I have seen this as aresult of a dimm going bad so certainly going through the hardware wouldn't hurt, maybe something got jostled and no one is admitting it.

Software of course - what was added or updated, look for common suspects like antivirus programs, or other normal upgrades. Check the readme files associated for known bugs and such.

Now, this one will get you and I just can't find the article that supports it, but it can be an "unknown undocumented error", they occur and when Windows runs out of ways,error messages, BSOD, etc to tell you about it, it just reboots. nice. And since it is sort of in control at that time it does not need to generate a scandisk restart.

If your totally frustrated then it just might be time to call Dr. Watson, and put him to work in the startup folder, constantly monitoring, until you can reproduce the fault more than once to see if the same thing is occuring or if there is more than one problem. MS Document Q275481 goes over Dr Watson usage if you need arefresher.

There are some thoughts that might be of help, oh of course you might want to check the Compaq, or is that HP, or is that HacPaq, website to see if there are any recent releases of known problems.

Hope that helps.

There are four reasons why a computer will shut down.

1. Software
2. Heat
3. Bad Power Supply
4. Bad Motherboard/CPU

Since the computer restarts in DOS, safe mode, and after a format and a reload I do not think it is software related.
When heat builds up the computer will shut down to protect itself. If the temperature drops just a few degrees the computer may restart instead of shutting down. Check to see if all the fans are clean, ventilated, and working. If the same units keep restarting try opening up the case and even consider put a small personal desk fan blowing into the unit, if the computer stops rebooting try replacing and/or upgrading the fans in the computer.

If a Power Supply sees current either to high or too low it will shut down to protect the computer. Sometimes it will shut down even with the current being normal. Other times the Power Supply itself may pass, or even create, bad current,. Bad Power Supply is best tested by substitution. Put in another Power Supply and see it that solves the problem.

Motherboards are sometimes the diagnostic of last resort, since the Motherboard can mimic most problems the computer can exhibit. Remove all the cards off the Motherboard except of course the Video card, if the problem goes away add the cards one by one until the offender is discovered. Both the Motherboard and CPU have safeguards that will shut the computer down if it detects to much heat or electricity that is too high or too low. Depending on the cost you may replace one or both to solve the problem.

It is possible that RAM can force a reboot/shut down but that is not typical. Usually RAM does not allow the system to start, freezes the system, gives the blue screen of death, or other error codes. RAM can be tested by Norton and PC-Doc software which will find most RAM problems.

Jim