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View Full Version : Strange problem, pc turns itself off!



Jollyjedi
2008-04-24, 22:41
My pc is about a year old, AMD Athlon dual core 2400 running windows xp pro 250gig hard drive, 1gb ram, nvidia geforce 6100 nforce400.
Just successfully come through my second attack of vundo. My first attack was sorted in these forums, but not long after my pc would turn off in the middle of a game, burning off discs etc. This started happening more and more often, so now all gaming has been banned! However, I can't now use my Nero burning programme or several larger applications. I can't back up my files, the computer just freezes. I can't even run S+D - it will get half way through and the computer turns off.
After running tests we found my hard drive has bad sectors, but I can't run chkdsk either to repair, so I've bought a brand new shiny one. Uuuuunfortunately, when trying to install windows, guess what happens!!!
So at the moment I have my failing drive (which is ok for most things), with a 250 spare drive. Tried to clone the drive over but that froze the pc too.
We've tried swapping memory sticks and taking one out etc, but that didn't help. Someone has suggested the bios might need flashing, this one is beyond me! Anyone have any ideas? thanks. Also, could the first vundo/virtumonde attack have damaged the bios or something else? If so I need help. Thanks

spybotsandra
2008-04-26, 15:43
Hello,

This can be caused by an too high temperature of your pc.

If your PC is properly designed, it's cooling system should handle the devices originally installed without shutting down, even when it operates at 100% load. This of course assumes room temperature and that vents on the PC aren't blocked or the case filled with dust.

If you've changed major components without purchasing them from the orginal PC manufacturer, your taking your chances. There's no way they're going to test all possible devices or know what might happen, so that's why you're getting the run around.

If you've built the PC yourself, you're resposible for the cooling design, since the case and powr supply manufacturer can only give you general specs. True PC manufacturers test the heat caracteristics of the critical devices like CPU and HDD under various ambient temperature conditions with the system running at heavy load for at least several hours. The temperature sensors must stay below certain thresholds to be approved for manufacture or the desgin is changed.

However, be sure to keep the vents clear of dust and pay attention to the sounds of the fan(s), since they indicate that heat is increasing by speeding up in some cases and should normally idle quietly.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

Jollyjedi
2008-04-26, 20:29
Thanks for the reply.
I found a driver disc for the motherboard and in a last ditch effort to update the bios put it in, and lo and behold, there were all the tools I wanted! Now my bios is bang up to date, as are my chipset drivers. There was also a nifty gadget that showed all the component teperatures etc, and yes, my cpu fan speed was too slow (it was also plugged to the wrong pins). We took it all apart, put new silicone stuff on the heatsink and put it all back together, then went into the bios setup and switched the smart fan gadget on. Now if my cpu temp rises the fan speeds up, yippeee. My new hard drive has been installed and all seems to be well, just got to move everything round and sort out the dodgy drive now :)
thanks for your help. This computer was built for me and I assumed it would all have been correct, but I suppose after a year things do start to go wrong........