Mind of its own!

[robgood]

My pc has recently been shutting down and restarting as and when it feels like. During start up, it always wants to check the hard drive for errors which I skip cos it never completes.

 

I decided to format the hard drive, reload windows and start afresh. Unfortunately, this has not resolved the issue.

 

Any advice most welcome.

 

My pc is running XP Home Edition.

 

Thanks

Rob

[RandyL]

It might be a heat issue due to dust or grime build up. Open the case and see. Clogged fans are notorious for that.

[robgood]

Thanks for the advice. I will check tomorrow for dust etc.

 

Rob

[Dalo Harkin]

You also say a disk check never completes, is this because it restarts before it completes or it just sits there doing nothing.

 

Either way it could be related to an HDD problem, run chkdsk and let it finish to repair any problems there may be (if it cant finish then the drive is probably fluffed)

[robgood]

You also say a disk check never completes, is this because it restarts before it completes or it just sits there doing nothing.

 

Either way it could be related to an HDD problem, run chkdsk and let it finish to repair any problems there may be (if it cant finish then the drive is probably fluffed)

 

It restarts without completing. Having said that, I left it to do its own thing today and after several restarts, it completed a disk check. Everything seems fine at the moment.

 

Rob

[Jelly Bean]

Once you have cleaned internals.

 

Download this and post temps please: SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer

[Dalo Harkin]

It could be a number of things:-

 

Heat:- on the first boot up after the PC has been off for a few hours, the CPU should not generate enough heat to shut the PC down at the startup section, within a few minutes in windows yes thats the sort of time it would shutdown due to heat, and when you try and restart the machine it would shut down immediately again due to the heat.

 

The HDD check could just be because the PC is shutting down early, or it could be a fault with the HDD itself which the chkdsk would fix automatically unless there is a mechanical fault with the drive, which 99% of the time the drive makes a clicking sound.

 

If you can enter the BIOS you can check the CPU temps and shutdown temps (monitored by the MOBO) while they are not 100% accurate they are enough to give an indication if there is a problem

[Poconos]

To add to what Dalo suggested, if you can monitor fan speeds and temps in BIOS I'd keep the machine off for a while to let it get to ambient temperature, then get into that BIOS screen and sit there. See what the speeds and temps do over time. Just keep refreshing the screen if that is needed. Things should stabilize somewhere after a couple minutes. If the temps keep climbing and it craps out, you've localized the problem somewhat.

Al

[Plastic Nev]

You can of course do as suggested and check temperatures while in BIOS, however, Windows will not be active and running, neither will many other processes.

However downloading and installing Speedfan as JB suggested, and it will run while Windows is fully loaded and all normal processes are running. Thereby giving you a better idea of what is happening to temperatures while the machine is under some load.

Nev.