Computer powers on, but after a couple of minutes it turns off

[Lepard]

A friend's computer, Dimension 2350, has the weirdest problem. It turns on just fine but after maybe two minutes after POST it would just shut off. It doesn't even get to load WinXP, so I dont think its an OS problem.

Im guessing try out the power supply first, but I want to be able to eliminate any possible software or BIOS configurations.

When booting, it has an error message that reads "Invalid System Disk", but I dont think this would cause the computer to turn off, will it?

Any ideas?

 

[Shortass]

It could be a power supply problem, but I think the hard drive is also suspect as Invalid System Disk might point to. Not sure what you can do though...

 

[Jiggz]

The system could be turning off because it cannot find a system disk. So you need to find out first if the hdd is corrupted by running fdisk from a bootable cd. If the hdd is corrupted which I sincerely believe it is, then do a restore or a repair installation. Check the bios also to see if the system is configure to shut down when idle. This should be in the power management option.