Computer Tech Help
 

Got this machine that I used to never have any problems with. I would have it running 24/7. Suddenly, about a month ago, the machine would shut itself down after an hour of use.

So what did I do? I checked to see if all fans were running but that wasn't the issue. After doing that, I checked to see if it were some settings. I haven't cleaned the machine in awhile so I decided to just do a format and get to a clean state since I wasn't sure if I had tinkered with some setting beforehand.

By the way, when I say shut down, the machine itself doesn't just turn off. The discs continue to run but Windows isn't in hibernation / standby mode. I have to manually turn it off. I decided to just check temps in BIOS but nothing is out of the ordinary. I also checked to see if it was some power management issue but I have everything set to "never" because I use this machine to store movies, games, etc. I also don't have hibernation mode enabled.

At this point, I don't know what else to do. If you have any ideas, please let me know. Thank you for your time.

Re: Computer Tech Help
 

Could be the power supply. Try swapping it out if you have another one laying around.

Re: Computer Tech Help
 

Is the computer an E-Machine by any chance? I've seen that same sort of situation twice before on E-Machine desktops I was working on and both times it was the motherboard. It seems to be a fairly common and well known issue with them. They had a bad series of motherboards they used for some time (years?) and basically the motherboard has to be replaced.

A motherobard problem is often a hard problem to pinpoint because short of installing a new mobo, there isn't much you can do to figure it out. It is a very time consuming and even costly process to replace every single piece of hardware one piece at a time to determine what is causing the problem.

From my experience, without looking at it myself, I'd say a power supply, motherboard or the processor over heating would my first guess. Then again, you can't rule out a bad stick of RAM but it's pretty easily tested.