Computer keeps dying

Brow

Apologies in advance if this is in the wrong forum or i forget to include something vital.

My home computer is fairly old, maybe 6+ years now. We only use it for the net now though. Very often when on the net, and sometimes when just using a program such as word or whatever, the computer appears to 'trip out' i.e. a click occurs, scrren dies, warms back up and the computer resets. When going back into XP the computer has to do a systems check and finds nothing, normally deletes a temorary net page file but nothing is ever found.

Ive tried spyware, anti virus etc and cant pinpoint a problem. Could it be the net provider? Is there something a can quickly fix or a part i need replacing? Any feedback is greatly appreciated as it can be quite frustrating!

aidan_walsh

Its highly unlikely to be your internet provider. It could be a corrupted OS installation, or a hardware component like RAM or HDD on the way out.

Download and burn memtest to ensure it isn't your RAM.

CtrlSource

When you say "a click occurs", is it perhaps from the hard drive? They tend to make all sorts of clicking sounds when they're on their last legs.

Apart from that, the description sounds very software/OS related. But the click does point to it being a physical hardware problem.

aidan_walsh

CtrlSource wrote: »

When you say "a click occurs", is it perhaps from the hard drive? They tend to make all sorts of clicking sounds when they're on their last legs.

Apart from that, the description sounds very software/OS related. But the click does point to it being a physical hardware problem.

Depending on the age of the monitor, it could be a click of the CRT switching off. I've certainly noticed this in monitors of this age and even younger.

CtrlSource

True, and that would seem to fit the sequence of the symptoms described. The monitor going off and on would be as a result of the pc itself rebooting...

OP, what kind of monitor is it? If it's the original you got with the system it's likely to be a CRT.

muggyog

PSU problem or loose mains lead to CPU?

pdevo

when booting up press f8 and then click on the disable automatic reboot this will give you an error screen when it tries to reboot that should make it a bit easier to narrow down

Overheal

A machine that old, if you want to keep it running its time for a good through maintenance job, lets be fair.

For a start, dusting the internal crap, might solve your issue if its related to overheating; its one known cause of sudden shut-offs and depending on your BIOS settings can look like a reset.

If it turns out to be a hard disk failure that will be cheap and painless to replace, really. But a solid reccomendation is to reformat the Hard Disk and re-install the OS from scratch, but you will need to know where your XP CD Key is.

emaherx

Overheal wrote: »

For a start, dusting the internal crap, might solve your issue if its related to overheating; its one known cause of sudden shut-offs and depending on your BIOS settings can look like a reset.

I'd nearly put money on this being the problem. Dust build up around the CPU Heatsink may cause this sort of sudden reboot. Or a faulty fan.

AdrianII

sounds like a power supply issue or could be an issue with the components on the motherboard.

If its a dell gx 270 / 280 it could be this

gamer

SOUNDS like pc mobo,or cpu is overheating , when it reachs certain tempeture it shuts down, open case ,are all fans connected, working ok, you can download prog to measure mobo, cpu tempeture.GRahics card maybe too hot.FANS may need cleaning, or pc psu power unit may be faulty.