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computer shuts down & reboots on its own

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by wordmaster1 1 view

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I am working on an old computer, 98SE,AMD 300, 256mb RAM,
CD burner, 10 gig HD. Plenty of room left on the HD. Everything works fine until it suddenly powers off, then reboots. It is subject to do this with nothing running, while starting various proggies, while running various proggies, etc. Then again, it may run all day with no problems. No consistent way to make it happen, no new software loaded, Adaware, Spybot S&D, and AVG have been run to be sure (or at least fairly sure) it is clean. Does it with nothing hooked up but a monitor, keyboard and mouse and nothing running but system stuff, explorer and systray (use EnditAll, not just ctrl-alt-del). Any help appreciated.

18 replies

by willcomp

My primary suspect is the power supply. Try swapping it out and see what happens.

Dalton

by ghimpe--

Week power supply or overheating.

Try another PSU (like sugested above) and monitor your temps.

by _christian_

You may also have a poor quality mains supply (this is my case here), in which case the only solution would be to add an UPS between the mains and your computer.

One way you can figure it is if the ligth bulbs in the same room tend to shift in brightness (they periodically do, here, in central London).

A surge filter will definitely not protect against this type of mains defect.

The UPS worked a charm for me.

by _christian_

I just thought about another possibility.

You mentionned an old PC.

The actual energy capacity of computers PSU (in watts) has evolved over time to match growing need for power from modern devices.

Some recent graphic cards required power supplies rated 350W or more (modern Nvdidia, I know for a fact).

This is explicitely mentionned on the box and the manual, but you may have to look for it.

So it may just be that your power supply is under rated for your current power needs.

If this is the case, the only way is to replace your power supply with more recent one.

by blackcurrant

Hi

One other thing you may wish to check is that the latest updates have been applied from Windows Update. There was an issue quite recently where one of the previous updates released caused this behaviour. Microsoft fixed this last month.

Run Windows Update, make sure all the critical updates are installed, and see if it cures your problem.

Good luck

by rngara

try changing your power supply, if that doesnt work then its definately your proccessor

by wordmaster1

Poster rated this answer.
It was the CPU causing the problem and you are the first to mention it. Thank you.

by debian

Hi,

Have you been added any new hardware or any new drivers . another reason could be you processor may be over heating and machine shuttingdown.Please check your processor fan is working or not.

Hope this helps

by sgt_shultz

while you are scarfing up another power supply, did you boot from a dos floppy and just let it sit like that to see if it will do it? after the boot up you could stick in a non bootable floppy. if it rebooted itself you'd see it at the non system disk error message...
this is gonna be big can of worms is my prediction. will enjoy watching guys fix this one...a pleasure to watch your minds at work...

by normh3

A few thoughts:

1. Check the heat sink on the CPU. If the fins get covered in dust, it can't disipate the heat properly.
2. An earlier comment mentions a Windows update that caused issues. Can't find it in my notes, but it actually shows in TASK MANAGER. To get the fixed version, you have to remove it in ADD/REMOVE Programs and then go out to Windows Update and bring down the newer version...which by the way has the same K number. Good luck.

-Norm

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