First things first. Turn your computer off, then remove the side panel. You are looking for an item that bears a strong resemblence to
THIS.
Once you've located it, check to see if the sides of it are caked with dust and crud. If they are, go to staples (or wherever) and buy yourself a can of compressed air and blow all the crud out of the case...paying special attention to the aforementioned fan and heatsink. Once that's done, turn your computer on. Is the fan spinning? Strongly? ( meaning with authority, not just barely turning) If it is, play some solitare until it reboots (and remember to keep watching the fan).
Did the fan stop spinning or slow Waaaay down? If it did, PM me and I'll send you a replacement. I just had to do this with a friend of mine who was having the same exact problem and a bad fan on the processor was the culprit. It's been running perfectly since.
IF that's not the problem, the second most likely scenario is bad RAM. Download
THIS PROGRAM and follow the direction to make a bootable floppy with this program on it. Insert it into the floppy drive and restart your machine. It will load this program from DOS and automatically start running. Let it run for 20-30 minutes and see if comes up with any errors. If it does you need a new stick of RAM.
If neither of these is the problem, we can work from there.
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