Im curious, you said the system was around 5 years old, some of the older systems, the monitors for them drew power from the computers PSU rather than there own outlet plug, if the monitor is one like this, chances are that the PSU has died/dying and just cant put the power out for the monitor.
Malfunctioning Computer
- Thread starter emiloch
- Start date
saddlemount
Mudslinger
Y'all are confusing me.. first somebody said Emiloch was Norton, then the next guy said his disk was too fat. Next the computer caught a virus, and finally somebody told him to press F8 to keep it from getting pregnant. Personally I think his hard drive is getting floppy.. 
I am a woman, thank you! And my name isn't Norton! 
Anyway, so last night I again attempted to troubleshoot my computer. First, I cleaned a massive amount of dust out of the computer, including wiping the video card and the fans.
The monitor failed to turn on again and again, and I tried to turn off the computer, but it kept restarting of its own accord. Finally, I somehow got it to a black screen that allowed me to choose safe mode. Once in safe mode, I tinkered around with some of the fixes I've seen on the Internet and on here, including checking for disk errors (it told me I would have to restart Windows to do that, which I was hesitant to do).
Again, while in safe mode, the computer restarted by itself. Miraculously, it ended up going to the normal mode just fine, where I ran my anti-virus. Halfway through, the computer restarted. Again, it went into normal mode, I reran the anti-virus scan, completed it (it found two potential problems in some sort of Windows restore file?), and then turned the computer off normally. I have not restarted it since.
I have not seen that countdown box again. Now, it sounds like a power supply problem as y'all have suggested, or maybe a RAM failure.
More thoughts? It seems cleaning the dust allowed me to at least get to normal mode; now I just have to combat its tendency to restart itself.
Anyway, so last night I again attempted to troubleshoot my computer. First, I cleaned a massive amount of dust out of the computer, including wiping the video card and the fans.
The monitor failed to turn on again and again, and I tried to turn off the computer, but it kept restarting of its own accord. Finally, I somehow got it to a black screen that allowed me to choose safe mode. Once in safe mode, I tinkered around with some of the fixes I've seen on the Internet and on here, including checking for disk errors (it told me I would have to restart Windows to do that, which I was hesitant to do).
Again, while in safe mode, the computer restarted by itself. Miraculously, it ended up going to the normal mode just fine, where I ran my anti-virus. Halfway through, the computer restarted. Again, it went into normal mode, I reran the anti-virus scan, completed it (it found two potential problems in some sort of Windows restore file?), and then turned the computer off normally. I have not restarted it since.
I have not seen that countdown box again. Now, it sounds like a power supply problem as y'all have suggested, or maybe a RAM failure.
More thoughts? It seems cleaning the dust allowed me to at least get to normal mode; now I just have to combat its tendency to restart itself.
FastCarsSpeed
Come Play at BigWoodys
No now it sounds really like a worm or something... I would boot up and immediately go to windows update and make sure you run all of your updates..
Foxhound
Finishing last
emiloch said:I am a woman, thank you! And my name isn't Norton!
Anyway, so last night I again attempted to troubleshoot my computer. First, I cleaned a massive amount of dust out of the computer, including wiping the video card and the fans.
The monitor failed to turn on again and again, and I tried to turn off the computer, but it kept restarting of its own accord. Finally, I somehow got it to a black screen that allowed me to choose safe mode. Once in safe mode, I tinkered around with some of the fixes I've seen on the Internet and on here, including checking for disk errors (it told me I would have to restart Windows to do that, which I was hesitant to do).
Again, while in safe mode, the computer restarted by itself. Miraculously, it ended up going to the normal mode just fine, where I ran my anti-virus. Halfway through, the computer restarted. Again, it went into normal mode, I reran the anti-virus scan, completed it (it found two potential problems in some sort of Windows restore file?), and then turned the computer off normally. I have not restarted it since.
I have not seen that countdown box again. Now, it sounds like a power supply problem as y'all have suggested, or maybe a RAM failure.
More thoughts? It seems cleaning the dust allowed me to at least get to normal mode; now I just have to combat its tendency to restart itself.
Whats the wattage of the power supply and how many hd and other internal peripherals are in the PC. Is it a high end video card. It may just be you need a more powerful Power supply. I've seen this before. You may also be having a heat related problem. Are all the fans spining freely? Just some thoughts from what you've posted here. Intermitent power failures are more commonly a hardware issue. If it were rebooting at the same point during the software load then I would have suspected corrupted software. It could also be multiple issues making more difficult to narrow down.
Good luck.
Katt
Active Member
Emiloch... I wouldn't rely on Norton AV. It misses alot of worms and viruses. As reccommended by many techy ppl, I downloaded AVG Free. You can get it Here: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 and then run a scan. It's a free anti virus program that updates everyday and you can set it scan whenever you would like routinely. It's been great. Also, you need an anti spyware program even more importantly than anti viral program. Since Spyware is more of a daily threat than viruses. I was also told that SpySweeper is a great program, but that one costs. I am willing to pay the 30 a year for that protection, since spyware will run your cpu so hard that it will cause shutdowns and overheating issues, which sounds like you might be dealing with. If you are thinking it's a video card problem, then it should do the same thing with another monitor. If you can hook up to another monitor somewhere. I have a 5+ year old computer too, and it's running great, so it's not impossible.
Katt
Active Member
If you want to d/l that AVG Free... just go to the site I posted and scroll down to the bottom of the page to click the link. You might have to do it in SAFE Mode in order for the virus not to load and cause your shutdowns. Also, be sure to shut off your "restore' feature when scanning for those viruses. If not, the scan will "save" them inorder to "restore", if needed. I don't think you want to restore anything the way it is now. When your computer is back up and running fine, you can always reinstate that "restore" feature.
G
Gemmi
Guest
Railroad said:In the past I've resorted to the thermonuclear altrernative - I wiped the hard drive slick and reloaded everything.Not easy and I lost all the data that I hadn't backed up, but it worked.
