Needing Assistance

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Kingrow

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#24164 16-Jul-2008 19:02

Hello.

I'm asking a question on behalf of my girlfriend. Something odd has been happening to her computer (well, her mum's, actually) quite a lot lately. What's happening is that every so often (not every day, as far as I know...) in the middle of what they're doing, the computer just turns itself off for no given reason.

We both thought that maybe it's something to do with the power supply, but don't know for sure. I had a spare ATX we could've used, but I gave that to a friend a while back (oops!).

Any ideas what the problem may be, and what my girlfriend (or her mum) can do about it? Thanks.

tonyhughes

Hawkes Bay
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#148599 16-Jul-2008 19:08

Could be virus, mobo, psu, cpu, or maybe even ram...

Need to take a methodical approach to it.

I think I would start with running a Linux Lice CD to see if that suffers the same power-off fate. If so, then its hardware related..., if not... then software related... (probably).

xpd

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#148629 16-Jul-2008 20:36

AS Tony said, could be anything.... overheating is another possibility. Had a few systems come in with that issue... bit of thermal paste, blow out the hs/fan and away they go again :)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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Kingrow

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#148700 16-Jul-2008 23:43

Thanks for the replies.

I just remembered something else that their computer does that might help pin point the problem. One night while I was on the phone with my girlfriend, she held the phone up to the computer, and it was making a crackly, buzzing noise (sort of an electrical sound. I'm not sure what it was, but it didn't sound very healthy to me.

xpd

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#148744 17-Jul-2008 08:31

Dodgy PSU

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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azlan

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#149045 18-Jul-2008 00:10

Take out virus option if computer completely powered off itself. Virus force pc to restart. I dont know about any new blasts though.
The sound may be coming from Power Supply. Take a look at it whether fan is running or not?? If not...change the Power supply.
Overheating can be a problem...Remove one side casing cover and see how PC behaves...if it works fine then overheating may be one of the reason...