Keep on shutting off

Closed
lee - Sep 15, 2008 at 04:56 PM
 jay - Jan 29, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Hello,
I have a computer with windows XP, intel pentium 4 processer, 512mb, 4 years old, and up until recently have had no problems but now I have a big one. My computer started cutting off when I tried to do a virus scan one day.
It will scan for a while and then it will cut off but the power light stays on and i have to cut it off manually plus if I don't let it stay off for 30 seconds it will shut right back off. sometimes it will do the same thing when i watch online movies for more the 20 or 30 minutes. and as a side note it may be unrelated but my front usb ports and memory card readers suddenly stopped working and are no longer listed up under "my computer" along with my c,d,and e drives and they used to be but whats funny the device manager says all the drivers are working and there are no unrecognised hardware alerts

2 responses

your computer may be over heating ,wend you turn it on list out for air ,air should be comeing out the back of your computer wend you turn it on ,if not your computer is over heating
5
4 years cool! how many times has it been serviced :) im guessing none at least in the last year,

What it could be is that you have a layer of dust on the heatsink and this is causing the pc to overheat, It is possible (if your system is overheating) that the drivers are becoming corrupt

take off the side panel of the pc and have a look for the big fan near the middle of the mainboard (the big borad with lotsa stuff on it) if you see that there is a mass behind the fan istead of fins that will be years of collected dust that needs to be removed
if it is a P4 cpu setup you can unclip the 2 leavers to release pressure and take the heatsink fan assy off can be tricky if you have never done it before may be best to get a technician to do it

if it is a AMD system these are easy!! undo the 4 screws that hold the fan in place and remove the fan to get to the dust,

** keep in mind if you do take the heatsink off on the P4 setup you will need to reapply some heatsink paste (ask your local tech for some advise cause you dont want to put too much or too little on) but remeber to remove all the old stuff before you put on the new form both the CPU and the Heatsink,

Also STATIC is a PC Killer, make sure that when you have your hands in the pc ALWAYS have a part of your skin touching the metal chassis elbow for arm does not matter but you need to ground yourself woth the compter so nothing pops due to static shock, or have a look at your local computer store for a static wrist strap this you just clicp to the case and put around your wrist

hope this has helped you a little

Oh just another thing,

if you have an air compressor you can blow the dust away without taking the fan off at all just remember to hold the fan still while you blow this will jsut stop the fan from getting damaged by spinning to fast

and DO NOT!!! i repeat DO NOT use a vacume cleaner NEVER NOT NIT NEIN NO dont use a vacume cleaner
I dont know if I have made my self cler DO NOT USE A VACUME CLEANER!!! lol
Vacume cleaners generate a lot of static and WILL 99.9% of the time Kill the pc DONT DO IT :)

ok hope this helps

good liuck
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