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Question

PC shuts down after 30 seconds

Jan 11, 2014 1:53AM PST

ITS BEEN about a week now since my desktop 'died'. I removed one stick of ram to see if the ram was the cause..but the post for the short time it worked, acknowledged it. ..also my dvd, hd;s ( 2 ). Now each time i try to get into the bios, I am getting to see less. I'm trying now by process of elimination, removed power from HD's,dvd, and even my video card. The latter surprised me..by removing the v. c. how can I tell what may be causing the problem. Now, at this stage, i turn on the pc and there are no beeps and of course there is nothing shown on the monitor. All fans are working, and then after about 30 seconds running, it shuts itself off.

XP-SP3 ABS desktop

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I can't tell what that ABS is.
Jan 11, 2014 2:07AM PST

I'm going with "another clone PC" so you may want to consider how much you are willing to invest. Without seeing it I'd go for a new power supply. Increase the size to about 600+ Watts so if we have to replace the motherboard and other parts we don't have to replace those.
Bob

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I can't tell what that ABS is...
Jan 11, 2014 5:08AM PST

Yes, it is a clone and has served me well for the past 9 years. I love the case. Would 600 + watts be an overkill for this units 420 ATX with that being the max for this MB as stated on the existing P S?

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Sorry if I was unclear.
Jan 11, 2014 5:23AM PST

I made an assumption we were going to repair this PC. Even if we replaced motherboard and other parts. Because we may need other parts we would not want to get a just big enough PSU only to have to replace it later.
Bob

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sorry it was unclear
Jan 11, 2014 6:02AM PST

I see what your saying about the 600 P S to cover all bases in the event that i had to replace a much later powerful MB...but I was assuming that if my problem was only the PS, would a more powerful P S be an overkill? I would gladly replace the MB, but that means then i would have to replace my video card, my sound card and a tv tuner. With the exception of the Video card ( One AGP slot ) the others are using the 9 year old pci slots. I am not into games. Would it be possible to find such a M B to accommodate those parts? As for caps, i don't know anything about checking them or even what it looks like. I had a list that came with all the parts that came with my clone, but so far am not able to find it. My Video card is G-Force FX 5200 NVIDIA

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AGP is very dated.
Jan 12, 2014 1:16PM PST

As to sound card, my bet is any new board will have it onboard and times have changed. I don't install audio cards. Also, a 5200 of that year would be bet by even the lowly i3 integrated video so no video card to replace.
Bob

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Answer
As always...you'll get better help when you provide system
Jan 11, 2014 4:30AM PST

detail. That means the OS plus the name of PC mfg (i.e. HP), series (i.e....Pavilion) and the complete model # (i.e. 1185.UK). The approx age and knowing whether its a desktop or laptop helps too. If it's a clone...you'll need to list the components separately.

Based on 'XP-SP3' I'm thinking the PC is pretty old ..... did you check for BAD CAPS ??

VAPCMD

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Our first run in with bad caps.
Jan 11, 2014 4:36AM PST

Was such a machine. It blew the PSU so we installed one with 100 more Watts which blew in a few weeks. We didn't figure it out as the BAD CAPS story was just starting up and installed the biggest PSU we had at 750 Watts. The next week the office was upset over the nice Kerblamm sound as the capacitors exploded in that desktop.

Well, the rest is history and we found out what part it was and later the story.
Bob

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Guess I'm feeling lucky....my daughters PC failed with
Jan 11, 2014 4:52AM PST

bad caps and there may have been one other other ...can't remember for sure but safe to say it's been awhile. Fortunately it didn't take out anything else when it happened...it just became very very unpredictable. A new motherboard made it all well.

VAPCMD

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Here the engineers gathered around the PC and said.
Jan 11, 2014 5:12AM PST

"Cool"

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OP again for a new desktop
Jan 14, 2014 11:00PM PST

OK guys...you've talked me into buying a new desktop, after trying to fix my 9 year old one that fails to boot. the decision is a brand name or a clone. My 9 year old was a clone and very happy with it. today I was looking at a dell 660 and its only $349. I chatted with the tech and there was one thing I forgot to ask, and probably know the answer anyway...all my stuff including XP is on a ide HD. I'm sure I won't be able to use my good HD's , but i have so much personal info on it and need it. Any suggestions of what to look for in a new desktop? I sure love my old case though ( its psychedelic )...compared to their ugly black one. I am not a gamer and love XP, and hope I could at least be able to double boot...I heard and read some disparaging remarks about Win 8...also one has to buy a peripheral that would allow it to be used as a touch screen.

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Did you just tell the world you had no backups?
Jan 14, 2014 11:10PM PST

That's OK. To get at your old IDE HDDs, put them into USB cases. Too many so I'll stop here. And please start backup of your stuff. Many great choices today.

-> About 8. Ignore all the noise. Go get CLASSIC SHELL and then give it a little time. If you are like folk at our office you'll wonder why Microsoft didn't offer that from the onset.
Bob