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General discussion

pc turning off and restarting

Mar 21, 2004 5:39AM PST

Hi..

I need some serious help. I have a compaq presario that's a couple of years old. recently a friend of mine upgraded it from win 98 to windows xp .It was working fine for a month or 2 until at the beggining of March the computer after a while just turns off out of nowhere and reboots. before it was rare only after more than an hour. Now it happens all the time . I'll be on it for 15-20 minutes when it just shuts down with no warning and the reboots. Then after another 20 minutes shuts down again and reboots. I dont know what could be causing the problem . Can anybody help? has this happened to anyone else?

if you can please steer me in the right direction i would appreciate it..

thanks,

Discussion is locked

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Re:pc turning off and restarting
Mar 21, 2004 9:23AM PST

i assume you have run scans for a virus and also scanned for spyware and found nothing. Windows XP normally reboots without warning when a device driver crashes. you will have to think back to what you might have installed just before these crashes started happening and decide if one of them might be the cause. games are usually the ones that could install device drivers without really telling you. once your system is crashing regularly, it will crash more and more often until you find the cause and fix it or do a clean install.

Herb...

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Re:pc turning off and restarting
Mar 23, 2004 6:53AM PST

This may be caused by a failing or undersized power supply.
Perform Robert Proffitt's favorite test. Remove the cover and point a fan at the inside of the computer, and see if this makes any difference, then post the results to this forum.
And of course, be sure the inside of the case and your fans are clean.

Good Luck.