Sudden shut-down

[koldsteel]

My daughters computer (P3 500mHz, Win98SE). Suddenly began turning itself off spontaneously. I havent been able to find a common thread in its behavior as related to certain programs or time intervals when it does this. Virus scan is clean. BIOS checked and no changes have been made. No high temps in case noted. Power supply new. Any help appreciated.

Kold

[Jiggy]

Hi koldsteel Welcome to Pc Guide,

Start up the computer with only the memory, graphics and cpu, disconnect all other hardware, hard drive, cd-rom, floppy and anything else thats not the three above and boot it up.
If it starts shut down and add your other drives/devices back one at a time.

Hope it helps, post back and let us know.

[Budfred]

When you say that it shuts down, do you mean a complete shutdown or a freeze on the screen? Are you able to restart it? Does it usually shut down in a specific program or with anything? Is there an amount of time that passes before it shuts down?

As long as it is starting up most of the time, you don't have to strip it down to a barebones boot.. the suggestion Jiggy gave. However, I would download the diagnostic utilities from the hard drive maker and run them to see if the hard drive is failing. Also, if you haven't cleaned the case out lately, I would get a can of air and blow it out real well. Check to make sure all connections are good and all fans are running, particularly the CPU fan. Do a visual inspection of the motherboard for any sign of leaking or bulging capacitors. It might be worthwhile to run a spyware and trojan scan as well, virus scans don't pick up on these and they can cause this kind of problem. Post back what you find out and we can try some other ideas....

[ski]

You may want to start in Safe mode before doing any hardware troubleshooting.
You can enter Safe mode by pressing and holding the Ctrl key during startup, select 'Safe mode' from the menu, and press Enter.
If the shutdown problem still happens, then check for a hardware problem.
If the shutdown problem goes away, then do a clean boot to troubleshoot it:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q192926

[Jiggy]

What i posted was it over the top?

[Budfred]

Not at all, just a little early in the process of diagnosing. It may not turn out to be necessary if it can be fixed with software diagnostics and basic maintenance...

[DaPunisher]

I've have this same issue at work. Had to replace the motherboard on multiple workstations to solve the problem.

[Beta Geek]

Does it shut down only after it has completely booted into the OS, or anytime? (Even early in the boot process, while in the BIOS, etc.) I had a similar problem with a Compaq that turned out to be the power supply. (No surprise there):)
You said that the PS is new, did this start happening after you installed it?

[koldsteel]

Everything loads up and runs normally. It does a "soft" shutdown and can be restarted by pushing the power button on the front of the case. I cleaned out the case. Motherboard seems OK - visual inspection reveals nothing abnormal. And its a relatively new board ( less than 1 year old ). I cleaned a lot of trash off the hard drive. And I reloaded Win 98SE. Its ran for >24 hours without turning off. Ill look for the spyware next and see what happens. Thanks for the help.

Kold

[Budfred]

So it usually runs for a while before it shuts down and then it goes through a normal shutdown sequence??? I am not sure I understand what you mean by a "soft shutdown".

When you say you reloaded Windoze, do you mean you wiped the drive and did a clean reinstall or you reinstalled Windoze over the old install? If you did a clean install, it means you have a hardware problem most likely. If you did an install over the old version, it doesn't indicate much, but could suggest a software problem if it ran better for a while.

[Jhorner1]

Actually, if you did a clean install of windows, and it is running OK now, you probably had a software or driver conflict.

[Budfred]

Is that what you are saying, that it is running ok now?? I am having trouble figuring out what the condition is from what you have said.... Sorry...

[koldsteel]

The "soft" shutdown I was refering to is when the computer shuts down without benefit of actually pushing a button. I did a clean install of Win 98 and everything is running fine. I also downloaded a spyware utility and found no less than 200 parasites in the registry and various files. It appears to be fixed as its ran for 48 hours with no problem. Thanks