kp7503

My mom has an old Gateway computer AMD 700/512 MB RAM/80Gig Maxtor/Windows XP.

She started having this problem a little over a week ago where the computer shuts itself off suddenly. At first it happened in frequently but now it doesn't stay on for more than a few seconds after it finally boots up, which takes an extraordinarily long time to do. Does this sound like a virus to anyone? Is there anything that can be done to save her data or is this a problem that can only be solved wiping the hard drive?

I can't do much looking around on the computer because it doesn't stay on long enough to do anything. If you don't do anything it will stay on but if you so much as look at it funny it turns off.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

whodat

see if you can start in safe mode to do a virus check, tap f8 or f12 on first start... but

its probably heat or the power supply

open the case up and blow out all the hair and lint from the fans, cpu fan and the power supply fan

post back

kp7503

I ran the virus scan and it found nothing. I blew out all the crud from every nook and cranny in the case. There was a lot! To no avail however.
Same thing happens. It takes a long time to finally load XP then once it finally loads it shuts off after about 20 seconds.

whodat

and the cpu fan was cleaned out?

0S1R1S

Take off the side panel of your case and let it run for awhile. If it does not shut down, it could've be the processor over-heating. Blow off all the dust off all fans and the front and back Air Ducts and just let her idle for awhile. You could also leave the case panel on and go into BIOS before POST and idle on the Temp page and see if the temp rises higher than normal, and do the same without the side panel on as well.

kp7503

That didn't work either. While in bios it stays on but when I let windows boot up it shuts off.

0S1R1S

Still could be heat related? But could be something corrupted too? I'm still suspecting heat though because of the load XP gives the CPU, and it could just shut off from over heating.. Did you properly clean out all the dust and let the machine run without the side panel on for awhile? Is that what you did while running it in BIOS? or was the case still closed?

kp7503

Ok, bear with me while I go into some detail, please.
I did as you suggested and thoroughly cleaned the computer with the panels off both sides and got no results. I even took the power supply completely out and blew it off very thoroughly.
The DSL is not working; the light on modem is flashing red instead of its usual solid green. I looked at the internet connection and there isn’t one, its gone. While booting normally the computer locks up. The reset button on the tower doesn’t restart the computer, I have to cut the power totally and turn it back on from the surge protector. When I do turn the power back on the computer automatically tries to boot itself, it doesn’t wait for me to push the power button. While booting the monitor clicks repeatedly like its being turned on and off.
I hit F8 and got various booting options. - I found that it was set to auto reboot if there was an error so I selected normal boot and instead of turning itself off (as originally thought) it was actually locking up and it gave me the blue error screen that said; A problem was detected and Windows shutdown to prevent damage. If this was the first time that I got that message to restart and try to boot again and that if the problem persisted that I should run a system diagnostic (don’t know how to) if that was unsuccessful to run a memory check (don’t know how to) as it may be faulty or mismatched, or to try a different video adapter. (Haven’t tried yet)-
Safe Mode – The computer stays on longer in safe mode. I was able to navigate through the computer and check some things. The computer says the video card is something other than what it is (It’s actually an Nvidia mx440 if memory serves), and it does not display any other information like, chip type, DAC, memory, adapter string or bios info. I checked the internet connection too and it was still gone. I looked at the add/remove programs list as well and there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in there.

-Increasingly frustrated.

whodat

you will have to remove that in the device manager then reboot ..to start with

kp7503

First, thank you for your time and effort in trying to help me solve this problem. I greatly appreciate it.

After trying and failing time and again to figure this frustrating problem out I decided to take the hard drive and video card out and install them on my home pc. The video card worked fine. The hard drive booted, still slow but it booted and didn’t crash. I was even able to back up her files and documents before I wiped the hard drive in a fit of frustration. I was then able to update and run Hitman Pro2* (an all-in-one spyware tool). It found some crap in there and got rid of it. It still booted slow. On a whim I thought that her Norton System Works 2004 might be having issues. I found a removal tool** (not easy to find) and ran the three programs in succession. Ever since then it has been running like new.

Thanks again,
Much less frustrated.


*http://www.klitetools.com/comments.p...&shownews=3040
Link to review and download of Hitman Pro if interested...

**http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT...&osv_lvl=&seg=
Link to Norton System Works 2004/2005/2006 removal tool.