PCTech Forums

Hi, I'm new here, but thought I'd ask around to see if anybody has ever run into a problem like this one.

A customer's computer (Micron PC, Duron processor) began several moths ago, shutting down while in use. This was shorly after they performed a video card upgrade themselves. I suggested several things to try, but to no avail. They had several virus infections, which were cleaned up, but the shutdown problem kept getting worse. Upon my inspection, one problem was that the PS was not sufficent to run the video card. I re-installed the old card, and reloaded the OS (WinME). The problem still occurs.

Here's what happens now: When the PC is powered on, it goes into scandisk (because it was shutdown improperly), and then loads the WinMX splash screen. Once the desktop comes up, the system will stay on for roughly 2-3 seconds, then go immediately into sleep mode (at least according to the lights on the case - green power light turns red). I formatted and installed 98SE, and either get the same problem, or the system locks up....but in both cases, it runs fine in safe mode. I had a friend use a PS tester and a MB tester on it, and they show everything to be fine. Any ideas as to what could be the problem. I'm ran a throuogh scandisk today, and it was almost finished when I left, and tomorrow I plan on running the Seagate drive diagnostics from a bootable cd....

Any help is appreciated.

Hi..
Did you F-Disk before Formatting to wipe the HDD clean?
WinME is not one of Microsofts winning OS's
I would first :
F-Disk and Delete old Partition then Re-partition and set drive active.
Then Format.
You say you installed Win98SE so just use a Win98SE or just a win98 boot disk and boot without cd-rom support,f-disk,format.
Then when you restart boot with the win98 boot disk again...this time with cd-rom support,make sure the win98se cd is in the CD-Rom.
Type the drive letter of your cd-rom at the prompt...type setup...enter.
Should take.
I would try this using the new vid card see how that goes.

Cactus

Yeah, I used the WinME bootable cd to fdisk and format, then booted with the 98SE cd to install 98....

And I don't have the new video card, but the 240 watt PS was insufficient to run that card anyways. It requires a 300 watt PS at least. That's one of my tasks, is to get the new card working, which will require a new PS, but if there are more hardware issues, it may be cheaper to replace the beast with a newer system....

My objectives are:
-Get the system functional (with 98...not ME)
-Ensure there are no (other) system component problems
-Upgrade PS to support new Video Card
-Upgrade OS to XP home
-Re-install all user software/utilities/drivers that are necessary

Is it possible that the switch is shorting and thinks you've pressed it? What happens if you disable all power saving settings in the BIOS & windows?

Well, the power button has to be held in to turn the system off, which completely turns it off. When the problem mentioned above occurs, the lights stay on, but change color, which, according to the manual, means it is in sleep mode, but you cannot "wake" it up.

I haven't been able to stay in Windows long enough to change the power management options there....and there are no real On/Off/Disable type settings in the BIOS, only settings for waking at a certain time, etc...but I don't see anything about disabling power management....

OK, here's the latest update.

I tried the new PS, but it didn't change. I have also loaded XP Pro on it, just for fun with no results....here is what I've done so far.

-loaded 3 different OS's, each time with an fdisk followed by a full format. The 3 OS's were Windows ME, Windows 98SE, and Windows XP Professional.
-had MB and PS tested -- both passed
-Changed video cards. I have currently tried 3 different AGP video cards with no success on any of them.
-Ran Seagate's Seatools scanner on the HDD, it passed both scans.
-Replaces CMOS battery and flashed BIOS.
-Ran Memtest86 to test the RAM - passed twice
-Upgraded/reinstalled the latest drivers for AGP, video card, modem, nic, and drives.

I'm going to try swapping the HDD for another just to see what happens, but I'm running out of ideas...if the HDD swap doesn't work, it looks like a new MB is the next step, but the customer likely won't want to spend that much to rebuild a Duron based PC...

Off the wall suggestion, have you tried a PCI slot video card?

I actually thought about that..but I don't have one....