PC randomly crashing, not starting up sometimes

[smoggie]

Hi, trying to get some info for my m8. His pc keeps randomly shutting down when doing work or left downloading and it also wont boot back up somtimes.
when it wont boot up nothing at at comes onto screen, just black. His cpu(athlon dual core 5000+ 2.61ghz) fan is running, his sata dvd drive will eject out and his other dvd drive which is an IDE does not eject out. His PSU is 600w is and fairly new. A few days ago he did a format and fresh install of xp to overcome this problem but its still the same.
I dont think its the CPU overheating as it will not start sometimes even if the pc has been off all night.In the bios the temprature thing for overheating is disabled. I have told him to try take out one of his memory sticks and try running one at a time to see if its a memory problem.
Is there any software you can use to log any faults when its shutting down or not booting up?? Anything else i can get him to check??

[lfc4life]

how about doing a check for errors on the hard drive? or actually to a repair shop and bite the bullet asking them? Do he still have the warranty for it?

whats the make of the pc? Tell me its not a e-machine?

[davemac82]

Hi, trying to get some info for my m8. His pc keeps randomly shutting down when doing work or left downloading and it also wont boot back up somtimes.
when it wont boot up nothing at at comes onto screen, just black. His cpu(athlon dual core 5000+ 2.61ghz) fan is running, his sata dvd drive will eject out and his other dvd drive which is an IDE does not eject out. His PSU is 600w is and fairly new. A few days ago he did a format and fresh install of xp to overcome this problem but its still the same.
I dont think its the CPU overheating as it will not start sometimes even if the pc has been off all night.In the bios the temprature thing for overheating is disabled. I have told him to try take out one of his memory sticks and try running one at a time to see if its a memory problem.
Is there any software you can use to log any faults when its shutting down or not booting up?? Anything else i can get him to check??

download this m8 sound like it is definately your ram ....

Download Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic - It tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors - Softpedia

burn this to disk as an image (bootable) boot from cd on system startup and it will tell you if you have any problems with ram!

[smoggie]

why go to a repair shop where they will probably have his eyes out when there are members on here who are just as well or more informed than some repairers. If I can help it fixed for nothing I will. no its not in warranty its not a e machine and i thing he got the cpu/motherboard/memory as a bundle deal ready assembled.
Is this what you are talking about checking for errors?? How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP

[smoggie]

download this m8 sound like it is definately your ram ....

Download Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic - It tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors - Softpedia

burn this to disk as an image (bootable) boot from cd on system startup and it will tell you if you have any problems with ram!

cheers, will try this

[lfc4life]

i only suggested it and i didn't tell you to tell him to do it!

well it sounds very much like a hard drive problem

[Street Hawk]

Hi,
Bad ram can cause random problems with a pc, might be worth trying new ram or another ram stick from a working machine. failing that you could also try looking at the event viewer in windows (if its Windows XP) his running on his system it will indicate the last known errors logged on the system & give you something to work on as the machine decides to shut it self down whilst using it it could be an application that has contributed to the problem. its basically troubleshooting by process of elimination.
good luck & let us know what you find.
Regards

Street.

[alanford14]

Hi,
I had similar problem with one ThinkPad laptop before a few weeks, and the problem was with motherboard. The price for new motherboard was greater than the price for new laptop, so we decided not to repair this.
In your case, if problem is really with motherboard, price is much lower, so you can try to replace it.

[renshar]

The fact that the machine is randomly failing to boot would suggest to me that there is a definite Hardware fault on the machine.

Start with the HDD and memory tests suggested, then start swapping out other components such as optical drives and graphics cards.

This way you will isolate the problem ad limit the amount of money that is wasted in getting the machine up and running.

PS - Why take it to a repair shop and be potentially ripped off by somebody who just decided to turn something they did as a hobby into a business. There definitely are people on this forum who can help, I for one am a certified IT Professional