Technically I am not 100% sure that the machine actually feels any pain, but it is certainly a pain for me. I was planning to build a new rig over Christmas break (when I have time to research parts and time to do the actual assembly). However, I guess that my PC had other ideas about timing.
This system has run with no major problems for a couple years. Now...
When I turn the machine on, it boots up fine and runs for a little while and then shuts itself off. Completely off. No fans. No nothing. As if I had hit the switch. The duration that it will run varies but it seems like it is getting shorter (unless I am just hyper sensitive now to the issue). In any case, it will not run for more than a few minutes at this point.
I am running:
Win XP (cannot remember which SP/patches, but think that I am completely up-to-date)
stock AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (never been overclocked)
Cannot remember which motherboard but it is either an Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI
Drive 1 = 80 GB (either Maxtor or Seagate about 3 years old): Has C: (Operating System) and D: (MS Outlook [critically important] and some other tools).
Drive 2 = 120 GB (also either Maxtor or Seagate and a bit less than 3 years old): Has E: & F: (most of my data, games, etc.)
2 CD drives (one burns 8x and the other is just a reader)
2 X 512 MB ram - cannot remember brand but it is either Patriot or Corsair
120 mm fan in the back
and 2 X 80 mm fans in the front
GeForce 6600
650W power supply (2 years old - has the modular wiring)
At first I thought that it was probably my C: drive going bad and that when the operating system was trying to write some temporary file that it was failing and dying. However, after reflecting, I am less confident of that diagnosis. As it does not make sense (to me) that the computer would shut down completely for a hard drive write failure. Which also made me think that a memory error seemed unlikely to cause this kind of failure?
Can you tell me what could be causing this behavior? Let me know if I need to provide additional information.
Thanks.
This system has run with no major problems for a couple years. Now...
When I turn the machine on, it boots up fine and runs for a little while and then shuts itself off. Completely off. No fans. No nothing. As if I had hit the switch. The duration that it will run varies but it seems like it is getting shorter (unless I am just hyper sensitive now to the issue). In any case, it will not run for more than a few minutes at this point.
I am running:
Win XP (cannot remember which SP/patches, but think that I am completely up-to-date)
stock AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (never been overclocked)
Cannot remember which motherboard but it is either an Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI
Drive 1 = 80 GB (either Maxtor or Seagate about 3 years old): Has C: (Operating System) and D: (MS Outlook [critically important] and some other tools).
Drive 2 = 120 GB (also either Maxtor or Seagate and a bit less than 3 years old): Has E: & F: (most of my data, games, etc.)
2 CD drives (one burns 8x and the other is just a reader)
2 X 512 MB ram - cannot remember brand but it is either Patriot or Corsair
120 mm fan in the back
and 2 X 80 mm fans in the front
GeForce 6600
650W power supply (2 years old - has the modular wiring)
At first I thought that it was probably my C: drive going bad and that when the operating system was trying to write some temporary file that it was failing and dying. However, after reflecting, I am less confident of that diagnosis. As it does not make sense (to me) that the computer would shut down completely for a hard drive write failure. Which also made me think that a memory error seemed unlikely to cause this kind of failure?
Can you tell me what could be causing this behavior? Let me know if I need to provide additional information.
Thanks.
