First of all, it's my first post on the forums, so I hope I can also help people to solve some problems because I know how it feels not being able to solve one... I have a Pentium D PC, with 1GB of RAM and a foxconn motherboard. It has xp sp3 on it and it worked fine like for two years, but then suddenly it turned off with no apparent reason. As it has windows I didn't even bother thinking too much of it, but then, after three months it did it again... And then after one more month. I started to worry when it turned off, then it acted like reset, the led was on and the processor fan was also on, but it never really turned on again. Now, this is what continued happening. I have to do a hard turn off (either holding down the power button or turning off the power supply switch), but when I turn it back on it lasts like twenty-thirty seconds to do so (the fans activate but the screen remains off for that time). I'm pretty sure of what's not causing it: -Windows itself, because I have formatted at least 3 times since the first turn off (more than a year ago, now). -HDD, because I have a new one and the other one is not there anymore. -Power Supply, because I was almost sure it was that, so I bought a new one... I don't know if it's really because of that, but when I bought it, the PC stopped to turn off, but that was two months ago but eventually it started to do it again, today it turned off like 7 times. -RAM, because I got 256MB and took off the 1GB one, but turned off anyways. -Overheating, I had a problem with that way back, but the PC turned off at like 70ºC, I was checking today the temperature with everest and it was like 48ºC when it turned off. So I think I only got the motherboard or the processor left... Has anyone have had this problem? I don't have the money to buy a new processor nor a new motherboard (so I'll have to save some money), and I want to know why is this happening. Do you think it may be a configuration/windows problem? maybe a memory conflict (I notice it usually [but not always] happens when I'm playing fullscreen games, watching a video on fullscreen, ejecting an USB drive/iPod, closing something that was fullscreened). Thank you in advance! Specs: Mobo: Foxconn P4M800P7MA Series (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 DDR DIMM, 2 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN) CPU: DualCore Intel Pentium D 930, 3000 MHz (15 x 200) RAM: Aeneon AED760UD00-500B98Z 1024 MB (2 ranks, 4 banks) DDR SDRAM Display: Video Adapter VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP (64 MB) 3D Accelerator VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] Also, I found this: Conflicts/Sharing (from System Information): I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP Memory Address 0xF4000000-0xF7FFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller Memory Address 0xF4000000-0xF7FFFFFF VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP IRQ 21 Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller Memory Address 0xFB000000-0xFCFFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller Memory Address 0xFB000000-0xFCFFFFFF VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP IRQ 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System IRQ 9 SCSI/RAID Host Controller IRQ 16 VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP IRQ 16 Airlink101 802.11g PCI Adapter Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB VIA CPU to AGP2.0/AGP3.0 Controller I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB VIA/S3G UniChrome Pro IGP
I had this exact problem, in fact I uploaded a video on youtube for help on it ( here is the video link : ) as you can see in the video, I spent a lot of money on a new power supply, and that didn't remedy the situation, what I suggest is 2 things: 1) Before buying new hardware, re-flash your BIOS, if you can with the latest version, ask if you need help doing this. This didn't work for me though. 2) Buy a new motherboard, CPu's almost never fail, its very rare you get duff processors, this worked for me, switched my old crap Epox motherboard with my gigabyte 1 I have now, and its worked since day 1. Can't see it being anything else personally though. If I were you, I'd get a decent motherboard to replace it too, you may be able to pick up a decent 1 reasonably, I would go for gigabyte first, but MSI or ASUS are good too.
Open your CPU, clean all dust from mother board, fan, and RAM then start your computer. This is a temporary problem that occurs due to dust in CPU.
Thank you very much for your answer (and sorry for talking so long on mine)... I think a friend can lend me a MoBo, so I can test if that's the problem... meanwhile I'll dust clean the stuff, since I noticed when I change hardware (for example I installed a floppy) the problem appears to solve for a little while, so it may have something to do ^^" Anyway, thank you very much, I'll report the results (I also think I'm gonna get a Gigabyte anyhow, foxconn ain't good)
