Constant System Crash

[Guest]

Hey all, a couple of days ago my system started crashing randomly, completely
turning itself off without warning. Sometimes it'd boot perfectly and let me
go about my buisness for 2 or 3 hours, sometimes it would crash 10 seconds
into the BIOS.

I ran Mcafee Suite which was completely up to date but it found no
infections. So I am pretty sure it is a hardware malfunction.

A few minutes ago I restarted it and instead of the BIOS screen I got a kind
of grey screen with black dots, it began to flash and switched between
various colours and shapes then stopped on the before mentioned grey screen.

Any idea how I can figure out which component is malfunctioning? I changed
the RAM and the Processor (replaced them with old components just to narrow
it down) and nothing changed. On a different note (as far as I can tell) my
sound card stopped working completely a few days ago.

Hard Drive? Mother Board? PSU? Any checks I can make on a physical level?

Thanks for any help!
Alex

Specs:
AMD 2500+ Processor (replaced by a 1500+ of same make)
ABit AT7 Max 2 Motherboard
Geforce 4 Ti4200 Graphics Card
512MB RAM
90Gig Maxtor Hard Drive

 

[Odie]

Uhh i have no idea on the wierd dot stuff but the crashes happened to
me before and i ended up buying a new cooling fan cuz my old one wasnt
strong enough for my new processor [i dont have athalon]. Then i also
got a new PSU that was 100 watts stronger. And now it works fine except
for my blank monitor post above.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm okay, the fan on my motherboard has stopped spinning on occasions, I
have even had to kick start it with my finger in the past (just like it says
to in the user manuel...lol) Maybe that is the problem...the CPU fan is in
full working order, but my problems did seem to be consistant with an over
heated Processor.

Alex

 

[Ron Martell]

Hey all, a couple of days ago my system started crashing randomly, completely
turning itself off without warning. Sometimes it'd boot perfectly and let me
go about my buisness for 2 or 3 hours, sometimes it would crash 10 seconds
into the BIOS.

I ran Mcafee Suite which was completely up to date but it found no
infections. So I am pretty sure it is a hardware malfunction.

A few minutes ago I restarted it and instead of the BIOS screen I got a kind
of grey screen with black dots, it began to flash and switched between
various colours and shapes then stopped on the before mentioned grey screen.

Any idea how I can figure out which component is malfunctioning? I changed
the RAM and the Processor (replaced them with old components just to narrow
it down) and nothing changed. On a different note (as far as I can tell) my
sound card stopped working completely a few days ago.

Hard Drive? Mother Board? PSU? Any checks I can make on a physical level?

Thanks for any help!
Alex

If the system crashes "10 seconds into the BIOS" then that is a
hardware issue. Windows has not even started to load at that point so
it cannot possibly be anything to do with Windows or any other
software on the hard drive.

In the absence of any error message or beep codes from the BIOS these
problems, especially if they are intermittent as you describe, can be
very difficult to pinpoint. Often the only resolution is to start
replacing hardware until the problem goes away, at which point you
will know that the last item you replaced was the culprit.

Check the motherboard manufacturer's web site. They may have a
diagnostic and/or a monitoring utility for your model that you can
download.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm