Hi - I've an Athlon +2100 system with 1gb memory, 2 HD's, 2 cd/dvd roms. Its been running fine for about 3 years until 2 weeks ago when the PSU just seemed to die so I tried an old PSU from another machine and everything booted up fine. However, after a week, the PC just started to turn itself off without any warning. There is no blue screen, or any other sign of a crash, the power just goes. I thought it was because the replacement PSU was only a 230w, so I went and bought a nice new 400w PSU, but it still does the same.

The time it stays on for varies, but it can be anything from 30 mins to 2 hrs. I found another thread with a similar issue, and have tried some of the things suggested. I've checked the fans are clean, I've run HD diagnostics (and they pass) and I've installed EVEREST home edition (but don't quite know what to do with the report - looks ok to me!!)

I checked for .dmp files on my C drive, but there were only a couple in the c:\windows\minidump directory from 2004.

I guess I still don't know if it hardware or software, but I'm stuck as to how to narrow the search down further.

Anyone any ideas??

Thanks

Damian

try removing then replacing the RAM

when the PSU went did it do any damage?

Thanks for the reply - the PSU did not do any damage as far as I know, when I plugged the replacement in the PC started up no problems, all disks, drives etc were there and functioning.

I've managed to stop the PC turning itself off - I remembered the only thing that I had done in the past month or so was to upgrade the SETI software I was running to the latest BOINC version. I uninstalled this, and hey presto, it stopped turning off.

I'm still not sure of the reason for my problem - I guess either:
SETI not compatible with some software I run
SETI not compatible with some hardware component
Extra CPU load caused it to overheat.

I cant see it being the last one as the previous version of the SETI software ran no problem and this would have had the same CPU effect.

Any idea how I can find out about the other two possibilities? Failing that, I guess the search for aliens will just have to go on without me!!