Apr 06, 2006 07:25 pm Check all the standby, sleep and powersaver mode stuff in the BIOS, not Windows...
Weird PC Problem!!!!!!!!!!
Posted on Apr 06, 2006 07:04 pm
cocofromscotland
Hello!
Member Since: Jan 12, 2004
OK so here it is:
I have a mate who has a good PC, decent specs ram and HD, Pentium, with XP (sorry no precise specs) and an ATI Radeon gfx card I think, about 6 months old with no ropey stuff on it, no viruses etc..checked that.
This relates to hardware Im sure but what, Im not sure.
Here it is...
PC switched on, working fine...suddenly fired off (tho PC power still on) into some weird *** mode that puts the monitor onto standby type thing but the PC power is still on.
BUT, you CANNOT get the PC to start up again..no ctrl + alt + del - NOTHING works. Only way to get the thing running again is a hard reboot.
Now, this has happeend after hard/soft reboot too...generally after about 5-6 mins. I Checked the power saving stuff and panned it all off so it cant be ethat.
ANY IDEAS AT ALL >>>?????
WORSE STILL...I fired int he master recovery disc, to try and reinstall the PC back to factory settings...it was 25% thru a hard drive reformat about to reinstall XP next and all factory added software when it done the same thing again (but lasted longer than when it was a normal boot up i.e. to Windows)...
SO is this power?? GFX ?? ANY IDEAS AT ALL>>???
Cheers guys
Coco.
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Apr 06, 2006 07:25 pm Check all the standby, sleep and powersaver mode stuff in the BIOS, not Windows...
Apr 06, 2006 07:27 pm monitors will go into standby mode when there is no video signal so it may be the video card going bad.
Apr 06, 2006 07:33 pm Cheers guys
dB, would the BIOS stuff go wonky even if they hadnt been changed bud?? Problem now is a HD which is partly formatted...
Can I restart, go into BIOS, then try installing Windows again (and reformatting HD) ??
Cheers bud
Zek...thats another thought too (though its only 6 months old) but dont wanna touch it til I have too!!
Cheers bud too.
Coco.
Apr 07, 2006 09:39 am sounds like the power supply is light. If the thing goes into wacky land after you've been tinkering on it, then I don't think it'd be sleep type stuff.
You should be able to restart the install, XP will just say there's a bonked partition and tell you to re-format it. shouldn't be a problem.
I'd bet if you swapped in a 'lighter' video card you'd nip the problem. Maybe drop a few USB devices if there's any attached, just to test.
Some MOBO now are saying they want 500w minimum, so it's worth a try.
* thread-jack *
hey coco, you see the LP pic in my gallery. I thought of you when I got it.
Apr 07, 2006 11:33 am Though I don't know alot about computers, last time that happened to me I had to get my motherboard replaced.
Apr 07, 2006 12:00 pm That may be necessary if the motherboard gets cooked by a underpowered power supply.
Power supply going funny (or underpowered) can affect pretty much everything inside of the PC.
Apr 07, 2006 02:27 pm My 2 cents worth.
Is that PC connected to the internet without a firewall? I can't remember the name but there was a worm out there that would shut your system down like this. I know you said it was clean but it was the first thing that came to mind.
Also, does this seem to happen when the screensaver kicks in or will it happen while you are working on it? Anyways, the type of screensaver can make a strange call to the video card which could cause it to shut down as well.
Could be faulty RAM. When the RAM fills up and doesn't release this could cause a shutdown.
And finally, if none of the above. It could be overheating.
I guess what it comes down to is it could be lots of things.
Apr 08, 2006 01:20 pm It may be a heat issue. Also may be the PS as stated earlier.
CPU overheating will shut your computer down real fast.
Also when troubleshooting, disconnect everything except the mouse and the keyboard.
The only way to know if it's the video card is if you try it another PC or if you have onboard video switch to that to see if the problem resolves itself.
Apr 09, 2006 06:29 pm Cheers guys...
Could be any of these as ye all say - ta for teh advices..much appreciated.
I've now realised that the darn thing is under warranty (its not mine ye see!) so he'll call out the engineer...as soon as I/we opened it, the warranty would have been gone so, all good in the end.
Anyways, a'll let ye all know what it was!
Cheers again.
Coco.
Apr 10, 2006 02:47 pm I have a similar problem with the computer I'm typing on right now. Sometimes it will "go to sleep" and never wake up again. After rebooting things work (relatively) fine.
The other thing it does is occationally go to the blue screen of death and require a hard boot, but won't reboot after it's been shut off. Strangely enough, if you open up the case, blow out the dust, and put the cover back on, it reboots... Then there's some sort of loud noise coming from the fans or something that eventually disappears (sometimes it takes a day or two, though)...
The machine is just a mess in general, though. It needs to be reformatted, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. It isn't my recording computer, thankfully.
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