What the smeg?

[Fraggle]

Hey. As you prob know - I know nothing about computer thingys. I was just wondering what causes them to crash? Mine did it twice yesterday and I had to unplug it and then plug it back in to get it to turn on again. It's not happened before. The first time happened when i had winamp on and the second during a game last night. When it crashed it turned itself off but the light that tells me it's on stayed on. It just went dead. Any ideas guys? Is it like Liam said - maybe it's time to buy a new one?

[PigL3t]

[Plutonic]

Almost anything can make a PC crash, but having it cut out but still be on... weird. It could still be either hardware or software, but I would probably guess hardware. Does everything cut out? Screen? Sound? You could try the obdvious and re-format first, that would pretty much rule out any software/virus issues.
After that it could be a case of taking out things not required to boot the PC, like sound or network cards. Or if you can find someone with spares, swap out the graphics and ram to see what happens. If you find soimething that when removed it goes away its almost certainly either that or the thing it plugs in to.
Of course, if your PC is realy shit, a new one may not be a bad idea anyway, but its hard to say without any more info.
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[Fraggle]

Yeah - everything goes when it crashes. My comp is pretty shit tbh. I have no idea what the specs are but it was the cheapest one we could build about 4 years ago. I think I might have to get a new one when the summer comes around.

[Gnork]

if you bought the cheapest one then simply upgrade the internal memory - it probably lacks a lot of that and its very cheap to buy.

Go here: http://www.hwinfo.com/download32.html and download/install hwinfo32. After completion, run the program and click on the Memory tree to the left. It will tell you to the right what's in your computer. That will probably be PC2100, PC2700 or PC3200 memory. If so, go to a computershop and get yourself either 1 or 2 memory modules of 1Gb PC3200 and replace the ones in the pc. 1Gb PC3200 sells for 34 euro over here, that's way cheaper than having to buy a new machine. The memory clicks very easily into the pc, and you don't need to install anything or whatever, it will just run better.

While having the pc case open, take out your vacuum cleaner as well and clean the cpu fan from excessive dust (some ear sticks will help to clean the fan blades very well). The sudden shutdown sounds like a cpu overheating due to dust problems, it's trying to protect itself from burning.

If you abused this pc over the years with too little internal memory, then you've stressed the harddisk a lot btw... perhaps it's failing. To check if the drive is still ok, goto http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools and download Seatools for Windows. After installation, run it and click on the Maintenance button. You can perform a short drive self test of a long self test - both will tell you if your harddisk is still ok or needs replacement.
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[Dragons]

that kinda thing used to happen to me the most likely thing from what u describe is that your computer isnt shutting off but rather going into hibernate mode it happens alot with dos based games where windows doesnt register that the mouse/keyboard is in use and its goes into this mode

you can change the setting to "never" some where i forget where its been ages since i did that have liam find it for you
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it is better to die valiently fighting for ur belief than live hiding from ur convictions

[Worm-Unit]

add sum more memory as gnork said + reinstall windows [deep format] + tell James to stop downin ghey p0rn = pc better than ever
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