Problem. No, it's NOT the Blaster worm.

[Frustrated]

Unfortunately my problem is coinciding with the Blaster worm but please bear
with me.

I've checked out my computer for the worm and it does *not* exist. My
computer is shutting down under these circumstances:

1. I can boot up under W2K and keep the computer up and running so long as
Norton anti-virus is scanning the entire disk.
If I don't have the anti-virus program banging away, then the computer shuts
down after 2 minutes. No error message, no blue screen. If I stop Norton
anti-virus, then the computer shuts down after 2 minutes.

2. When I boot up under LINUX and try to do a restore to another partition,
the system shuts down. I can, however, restore to the primary ('C')
partition. In other words, I can keep the computer up and running for hours
so long as I'm in the process of restoring to the 'C' drive.

I've taken these actions:

The computer is no longer connected to the Internet.
Just in case, I've run FixBlast.exe.
Just in case, I've run the latest Norton anti-virus (8/13/03) and found no
problems.
I've reformatted the hard drive.
Used FIXBOOT and FIXMBR.
I reinstalled an image backup dated from last month.
I've reflashed the BIOS.
I bought a new power supply.
I'm able to put the hard disk as a slave drive onto another computer and it
works fine.

Anyone care to speculate what the problem might be?

 

[Frustrated]

Sigh. I'll repost this problem when the Blaster worm is history and people
actually read the details instead of jumping to conclusions.

 

[Calvin Crumrine]

I'll guess that you have a problem with your BIOS power saving settings.
Like maybe it's set to go into standby when it's idle for 2 minutes?

1) Try shutting down Norton & running some other disk/CPU intensive
program-maybe scandisk or defrag.
2) Check your power settings.

Now I've never seen symptoms like yours so I'm just guessing. Could be
entirely wrong, but my guess does pretty much fit your symptoms.

Good luck.

 

[Frustrated]

"Calvin Crumrine" wrote

I'll guess that you have a problem with your BIOS power saving settings.
Like maybe it's set to go into standby when it's idle for 2 minutes?

1) Try shutting down Norton & running some other disk/CPU intensive
program-maybe scandisk or defrag.
2) Check your power settings.

Now I've never seen symptoms like yours so I'm just guessing. Could be
entirely wrong, but my guess does pretty much fit your symptoms.

Good luck.

*** PLEASE NOTE. ***

THESE SHUT-DOWN PROBLEMS STARTED OVER A WEEK >BEFORE< THE BLASTER VIRUS. I'M
REPORTING THEM NOW AFTER HAVING SPENT A WEEK ATTEMPTING TO FIND THE CAUSE OF
THIS PROBLEM.

I've disabled all power management settings in BIOS and in W2K. No success.
I've shut down Norton and wrote a batch file to bang away at the disk & CPU.

:again
dir /s c:\ >> c:\junk
sleep 5
goto again

This keeps the computer up and running indefinitely.
If I increase the sleep to 10 seconds, the computer crashes (hard shut-down)
If I change "dir /s" to "dir", then the computer crashes.

The computer never, ever crashes when it is booted up from a W98 floppy.
The computer sometimes crashes when it is booted up with LINUX off of a
floppy.

Sometimes when the computer crashes, I have to unplug the computer and wait
about 30 seconds before plugging it back in or the computer is totally dead.

 

[George Hester]

Frustrated your problem is likely outside of the operating system. You said
you are reformatting the harddrive and reinstallong. And the problem
continues. If I were you I would chuck the Norton and reformat again and
reinstall. I also would start all over again with a different harddrive and
slowly build your system back up. Start with 1 harddrive blank and build
from there.