Ok I have been having this problem in the past but now it is to the point where it keeps doing it over and over and I think it might be th evid card. Here is what it is doing. The PC will boot and just keep restarting. Before it would do it for like maybe an hour and then it would run just fine. Now it is to the point where it will boot and then randomly just shut down, try and restart, shut down, restart, shutdown, etc... No matter what I go into, bios, game, etc.. Sometimes it shutdown b4 the windows login, others it will restart when I get into bios, it is random. The fan was not working on my vid card previously but I read how to oil it and now the fan is running properly and the vid card is not heating up like it was in the past. The problem is it wont stay running long enough to do anything with it. Last night I think it finally done itself in because now all it does is restart and wont even get to the user selection screen. PLease help! I dont know much for terms and stuff for computers but I do know some of the basics. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi and welcome to D-A-L

do you feel comfatable opening the case?

if so remove and reseat the RAM and any other cards connected to the motherboard.

does the machine have god airflow, is it dusty inside?

Yeah I can open and take out things but just dont know some of the terminology. Ok I should have listed what I have already done (my bad). Ok previously I have reseated RAM, I have taken out the PCU for 1 min and put back in (friend told me it would reset it and maybe help), I have blown out all the dust from all the heatsinks/fans/mobo/etc. Taken out the vid card, took apart the heatsink, fan was not working, took off the sticker thing and oiled it and the fan is working now. Right now the pc is running but I dont know for how long. All night it kept shutting down/restarting, went to sleep for 4 hours, continued to do it upon waking up =/ I have even unplugged the PC from teh power surge and directly into the wall. Checked my event log and nothing seems to be listing in there. Tried to run the hardware scan but nothing is posting in the pop-up I get besides direct-X version. I am currently on my older PC which works fine so I can do whatever need be to the other PC while still online.


I should also add that this has been doing this for over a year now. Before it would just be like a random restart every couple days but now it is to the point of a few hours straight that it will do this. I am really frustrated with it.

When it first started doing it I use to get an "overclocking" error but for the longest time I have not recieved that message. It is an ASUS mobo, fx 5500 256mg DDR vga card, Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.20GHZ, 1GB RAM, XL450w PSU

do you mean removed the processor, was the fan on the procesor not working or was it the graphics card fan not working?.

how many stick of RAM have you got?
have you got another graphics card to try or yours in another machine?

The fan on the graphix card was the one not working and last night when I felt the graphix card it was HOT! Right now the pc is running and working but I cannot say for how long. I was thinking it might be the graphix card so on the wife's ride home this morning she was gonna swing by best buy and pick another one up. If anything I will stick it in this PC (2nd) since this graphix card is about 4 yrs old and needs a new one to get ridda some of the graphix lag this PC gets while gaming. Does it sound like the graphix card could be the right solution? Cause I mean right now the PC is working and running just fine. Do graphix cards cut out like then when taking a dump?

Lemme add that since last night when I oiled the graphix card heat sink fan that the fan has been working properly and the graphix card has remained cool and not hot to the touch like b4 I fixed the fan.

2 sticks of Ram in there. I dont have another (dont know how to put it) slide out graphic card this PC it is built in the mobo or whatever.

it may have been the graphics card getting too warm, see how it goes.

sometimes when the RAM is on it's way out it gets too warm and cuts out, I had that problem a while ago

Ok. It ran just fine all day long. Now it is doing it again. I installed the new graphix card once it acted up again. It ran for about 5 min and shut off on me again. So obviously the graphics card is not the problem. Back to square 1 minus the graphix card being the problem =/. Right now I took out my 2nd stick of ram and it started right up. So maybe it is my RAm like you suggested could be the problem!