wayconn
09-04-2007, 10:43 AM
I've been experienced abrupt pc shutdowns for unknown reasons over the past few weeks. It doesn't appear to be neccessarily tied to specific actions or programs. The system runs win XP.
What happens is that while doing practically anything the computer just turns itself off for some reason. Not all the time and in no way predictably. On average it's happening 3-4 times a week minimum. Sometimes a few times a day.
It doesn't go all the way off either. The Power indicator on the on/off switch stays lit. But the the monitor suddenly goes black with a blinking indicator that there's no video feed. All sound stops, All drives and fans appear to stop.
When it does this the power on/off switch does nothing. The system can't be turned off, can't be turned back on, and holding it in to do a hard reset does nothing either. The only way to turn it back on appears to be to physically unplug it, wait a few seconds for the power light to fade out, plug it back in and do a normal startup. There are never any error codes or dialogs either before or after the shutdown. There's no dialog on startup afterwards that asks you to send an error report. As far as the system appears to be concerned there was no 'crash'.
I'm suspecting possibly a power supply problem but have no idea how to verify this nor any idea what else it may be. Maybe there are some settings somewhere that are out of whack that could fix it also.
Any ideas? Thanks.
What happens is that while doing practically anything the computer just turns itself off for some reason. Not all the time and in no way predictably. On average it's happening 3-4 times a week minimum. Sometimes a few times a day.
It doesn't go all the way off either. The Power indicator on the on/off switch stays lit. But the the monitor suddenly goes black with a blinking indicator that there's no video feed. All sound stops, All drives and fans appear to stop.
When it does this the power on/off switch does nothing. The system can't be turned off, can't be turned back on, and holding it in to do a hard reset does nothing either. The only way to turn it back on appears to be to physically unplug it, wait a few seconds for the power light to fade out, plug it back in and do a normal startup. There are never any error codes or dialogs either before or after the shutdown. There's no dialog on startup afterwards that asks you to send an error report. As far as the system appears to be concerned there was no 'crash'.
I'm suspecting possibly a power supply problem but have no idea how to verify this nor any idea what else it may be. Maybe there are some settings somewhere that are out of whack that could fix it also.
Any ideas? Thanks.