my computer keeps dying!!

[matthewrpenny]

hi guys, new to the forum, been on others and they have been as much use as a chocolate fire gaurd, so heres hoping you can help.

I'm havinga problem with my PC shutting down mid task, there doesn't seem to be any particular task that causes this, it has happened while using the internet, using word, excell etc, and most upsettingly while playing championship manager it doesn't just shut down either, it brings up a blue screen with writing on it (not the blue screen of death, more a blue DOS) then seconds later it shuts down compleatly

the PC has ben with the local repair shop twice, first time he said it needed extra cooling so fitted it into a new larger case with front and rear fans, and upgraded the processor fan, he then returned the pc and the problem remained despite him saying he had checked it. the second time he still insisted that it was over heating so changed the cpu fan again (free of charge this time) however the problem still occurs!!!

my Spec is
Jetway N2PAP ULTRA MainBoard
Athlon XP 2600
512MB 400Mhz DDR (pny brand)
Samsung 30GB HD
32MB GPU
XP Pro and XP Office


I know i have rambled on, but hope someone can help
Many thanks
Matt

[brad]

Wait for some other input but it sure sounds like a classic example of a bad Power Supply.
brad

[matthewrpenny]

that was the one thing i forgot to add in my first msg, it's a new (4 month)power supply 450W should be enough, only have cd drive and HD! had prevous problems with power supply which was kind enough to take my old mainboard, processor and Ram with it! that was fun!

ttfn
Matt

[noby]

Well in fact it can be anything. I would suggest taking all the add-on boards out and use it to see if the problem still exists. If not you add them on one by one. If possible, try with another video board also (PCI).
I guess you have already tested the RAM? If not use memtest 86; you can download it from
http://www.memtest.org/
test every part separately by swapping if possible till you find the lucky one.

hope it helps you

noby

[Restek]

You say it's 'not like a bluescreen, more like a DOS screen'. I'm not too sure what you mean by this, since the blie screen does look like a DOS sceen to me!! What does the bluescreen say?

[matthewrpenny]

[Geekgirl]

Heres a link you may want to look at


Is that what your screen looked like?



Heres top reason for random fatal crashes in Windows:

Power Supply - a bad (or insufficient) power supply is the most common cause for random crashes, especially if you have a lot of cards, drives, or fans, or have a dual-processor motherboard. A 350W or 400W power supply is recommended if you're experiencing this problem.
A mix of FAT32 and NTFS drives - If you have more than one hard disk, and there are different file systems on each one, try converting them all to NTFS.

Audio Card Drivers: - try removing your sound card, or at least uninstalling and then reinstalling the drivers.

USB Hub: - if you have a USB hub, try eliminating it and see if that solves the problem (especially if you have a USB-based Palm cradle and your system crashes every time you hotsync).

Overheating: - a computer will crash if the processor overheats. Make sure the CPU fan/fans are working, and that the processor temperature (read in the BIOS screen) is within normal limits. Make sure your computer case has adequate ventilation.

Bad memory: - a bad memory module can cause this problem. Try removing one of the modules (if applicable) to see if that solves the problem; rotate through all modules until you've found the culprit. Note that some computers require memory to be installed in pairs, so, for example, if you have four modules, you'll have to remove two (no more, no fewer) for this test.

[matthewrpenny]

possibly, it's that sort of thing, seem to remember having a countdown in the bottom right corner and something about dumps! the screen don't hang about long enough to see what it says


thanks

[noby]

[Geekgirl]

[Gecko]

First thing I would say to do is shut off the autorestart.

Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced tab > in the Startup and Recovery section
click the settings button > under System Failure check the box for “Write an event to the system log” and uncheck “Automatically restart”.

Now when your system fails the BOSD will stay until you restart the system.
Write down the stop error it should look something like this
“STOP: 0x0000000 (0x00000001, 0xc000017d, 0x00000002, 0xfc96fcc0)”
and post it back here.

[teststrips]

[matthewrpenny]

Guys, a massive thanks for all your help, run memcheck and i have a faulty DIMM, through trail and error i have removed the faulty part and the PC is now running sweet as a nut, (only slighty slower) so a new dimm is needed!

next question, my mainboard will support 400Mhz DDR (PC3200?)
what will potentially be faster, PC3200 with CL 3 or PC2700 with CL2.5?

thanks again
Matt

[Restek]

I read an article over at tomshardware.com where they compared RAM with different CL ratings. They found very little real-wrld difference between them, so I say go for the 3200