System crashes RAM problem?

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Guest

Can someone help? I have had an intermittent problem where my system just
shuts off for no apparent reason - there is still power to the box, but it's
almost like it's gone into hibernation mode (I have turned all these settings
off).

It seems to do it when the system has been idle for a while, as far as I can
tell, although it did happen in the middle of a reboot as well. CPU temp is
43 deg, HDD 37 and system 27, so I don't think it's overheating.

The otehr things that has been happening is that in order to reboot, I have
to turn the pc off twice - the first time it just goes to sleep again, and it
only starts properly on the second attempt.

Any ideas?

Thanks
 
SamS said:
Can someone help? I have had an intermittent problem where my system just
shuts off for no apparent reason - there is still power to the box, but it's
almost like it's gone into hibernation mode (I have turned all these settings
off).

It seems to do it when the system has been idle for a while, as far as I can
tell, although it did happen in the middle of a reboot as well. CPU temp is
43 deg, HDD 37 and system 27, so I don't think it's overheating.
Click to expand...

Ram is certainly a possibility. You might try downloading
memtest86+ from http://www.memtest.org/ and running it for
a few cycles.

-- Bob Day
http://bobday.vze.com
 
ah. 3.5 million is probably too many as well then . . . will do as you
advise and report back. Was really hoping it was as simple as replacing the
RAM . . .
 
have reseated the modules and memtest has run 2 cycles without errors now.
Still have a problem on power on though - have to do it twice for it to boot
up (and I've done a BIOS update which hasn't solved it).

I've also removed and re-installed Internet Explorer and Norton, as they
were erroring and causing crashes, but that hasn't helped either. I can't
seem to determine whether these are all related, or coincidental - one minute
it looks like a software error, the next hardware.
 
SamS said:
have reseated the modules and memtest has run 2 cycles without errors
now. Still have a problem on power on though - have to do it twice for
it to boot up (and I've done a BIOS update which hasn't solved it).

I've also removed and re-installed Internet Explorer and Norton, as
they
were erroring and causing crashes, but that hasn't helped either. I
can't seem to determine whether these are all related, or coincidental
- one minute it looks like a software error, the next hardware.
Click to expand...
Your description of the problem is a classic sign of a failing power
supply. Swap it out for a good, known-working one.

Malke
 
Ah - funnily enough, my power supply did fail about a month ago and I
replaced it - maybe something's causing it to go again. I don't switch my PC
off very often - could the power supply be overheating (doesn't feel
particularly hot, but you never know)?
 
SamS said:
Ah - funnily enough, my power supply did fail about a month ago and I
replaced it - maybe something's causing it to go again. I don't
switch my PC off very often - could the power supply be overheating
(doesn't feel particularly hot, but you never know)?
Click to expand...

The last time I had something like this happen, one of the cd-rom drives
was shorting out. It finally took out itself and the power supply.
These sorts of hardware problems are quite difficult to solve. I think
you're at the point where you need to strip the machine down to just
the motherboard, RAM, and video card and run some hardware tests. Or
take the machine to a professional computer repair shop (not your local
equivalent of BigStoreUSA) and have them run through the tests for you.

Malke
 
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