PC (XP) shuts down intermittently

[Prophet1000]

Hi,

 

My PC has started shutting down by itself, is it just bored or is something about to blow?

To restart I have to switch off at the mains first. Sometimes it switches off within a minute of switch on, sometimes it will last a couple of hours, and sometimes it waits for me to switch it off when I've had enough.

 

I put in a 1GB RAM stick a few weeks ago with no problems until now, is it connected to the problem? I checked compatability before purchasing.

 

Any help would be gratfully received.

 

Martin

[Jelly Bean]

Hello and welcome.

 

Lets first rule out a heating issue.

 

Download and run SpeedFan and post results:

 

SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer

 

Please could you post your computer hardware this may help us rule out or in an issue.

 

Try an update of hardware drivers and load defaults settings in BIOS.

 

Is shut down random or during a lot of running processes?

 

Or is it during game play?

[Tony D]

I put in a 1GB RAM stick a few weeks ago with no problems until now, is it connected to the problem? I checked compatability before purchasing.

 

RAM is sometimes bad right out of the box and may not be noticable at first.

You can download and rum memtest but I'd remove the new RAM and out old back in. If the problem goes away, the RAM is bad.