Dingadilly
Baseband Member
- Messages
- 37
Hello To Everyone
Herein is my problem, observations and possible causes/conclusions that I may have come to.
I'm looking for other ideas or even reasons why it couldn't be what i think it is.
I have an older MS8188E Matsonic board running 2 internal HDD and an extra DVD writer that i put in ages ago along with an upgraded video card. Running Xp SP2.
Haven't added anything new to the system for quite a while so i'm happy to discount a dodgy installation of new hardware as the cause.
The problem is my computer has recently (over the last 7 days or so) begun shutting down at random.
I get no error messages of any kind thru windows. System appears to boot and operate normally. Up until "It" decides to shut down.
These shut downs can be at any time. there appears to be no similarity in program usage or specific time to link the shut downs to as a cause.
Once the system has shut itself down it cannot be restarted.
Unless :
I remove the plug from the mains and replace it. (seems to reset all BIOS info to factory defaults) then the system will boot up with incorrect CMOS settings. (I've had to reset the time date every single ruddy time!)
Or:
Depress the power button on the front of the tower for 5 seconds (time i'd normally have to hold it in to force the computer to shutdown in the even of the OS hanging)
After the 5 seconds i can release the power button then pressing it again will yield a boot up procedure with correct CMOS Settings (ie unchanged)
It has to be the power supply right?
Its just that from what research i've been able to do on this. Alot of people seem to suggest that power supplies "just die"
"You might get a small bang, Or a wisp of smoke, but other than that no real warning that a PSU is about to die"
Also I did hold some data on my system for someone about 3 weeks back while they did a full clean and reboot. Turns out the files i were holding contained an awful lot of trojans/backdoor and spyware progs from quite a broad range of dodgier p2p applications.
I appreciate it prolly seems fairly obvious that the power supply is the cause, and i would be fully agreeable were it not for the fact that if I try to use the comp to do any kind of work, moving, deleting, sorting or anything really, I can expect a power loss in the near future.
IF I turn it on and manage to launch a task, scandisk, image creation, windows update or anything that takes a while to complete. So far it has always completed. If i don't touch the system it doesn't appear to shut down no matter how long its on for!! (Still testing this one out for accuracy but appears to be the case at the time of writing)
Is there any kind of virus or malware that could cause this kind of behavior as far as shutting down for no apparent reason goes?
Or is it just my PSU on the way out?
Any thoughts much appreciated
Ding
Herein is my problem, observations and possible causes/conclusions that I may have come to.
I'm looking for other ideas or even reasons why it couldn't be what i think it is.
I have an older MS8188E Matsonic board running 2 internal HDD and an extra DVD writer that i put in ages ago along with an upgraded video card. Running Xp SP2.
Haven't added anything new to the system for quite a while so i'm happy to discount a dodgy installation of new hardware as the cause.
The problem is my computer has recently (over the last 7 days or so) begun shutting down at random.
I get no error messages of any kind thru windows. System appears to boot and operate normally. Up until "It" decides to shut down.
These shut downs can be at any time. there appears to be no similarity in program usage or specific time to link the shut downs to as a cause.
Once the system has shut itself down it cannot be restarted.
Unless :
I remove the plug from the mains and replace it. (seems to reset all BIOS info to factory defaults) then the system will boot up with incorrect CMOS settings. (I've had to reset the time date every single ruddy time!)
Or:
Depress the power button on the front of the tower for 5 seconds (time i'd normally have to hold it in to force the computer to shutdown in the even of the OS hanging)
After the 5 seconds i can release the power button then pressing it again will yield a boot up procedure with correct CMOS Settings (ie unchanged)
It has to be the power supply right?
Its just that from what research i've been able to do on this. Alot of people seem to suggest that power supplies "just die"
"You might get a small bang, Or a wisp of smoke, but other than that no real warning that a PSU is about to die"
Also I did hold some data on my system for someone about 3 weeks back while they did a full clean and reboot. Turns out the files i were holding contained an awful lot of trojans/backdoor and spyware progs from quite a broad range of dodgier p2p applications.
I appreciate it prolly seems fairly obvious that the power supply is the cause, and i would be fully agreeable were it not for the fact that if I try to use the comp to do any kind of work, moving, deleting, sorting or anything really, I can expect a power loss in the near future.
IF I turn it on and manage to launch a task, scandisk, image creation, windows update or anything that takes a while to complete. So far it has always completed. If i don't touch the system it doesn't appear to shut down no matter how long its on for!! (Still testing this one out for accuracy but appears to be the case at the time of writing)
Is there any kind of virus or malware that could cause this kind of behavior as far as shutting down for no apparent reason goes?
Or is it just my PSU on the way out?
Any thoughts much appreciated
Ding