My pc is frozen or shuts down after 5 mins i started it!!!!

[vcdentro]

Yes i own an old athlon 600 mhz on win xp but, it was very good but lately i can't use it anymore, every time i start it, i open one or two programs or simply get connected to the web and it stops and gets frozen or just shuts down, what could be the problem, i've changed several time the ram memory and now i know it's not a ram matter, please tell me any suggestions. Look my processor is a little old, 1 year approx and has a two fan system, as i can see the two fans work alright, nothing seems to be failing.

More details.

The pc can be functioning for several hours but only on a passive way, i mean i start it and let it alone and nothing happens but if i use any application for 5 minutes it is frozen or shuts down, on ie it always happens, on word too, i mean, only using programs it happens, the pc by itself can be on without problems so i deduce it's not a fan problem, what can it be????? Please help me i can't use it since february....

[Innershield]

It does sound like it is overheating. Even if you have two fans or a hundred it won't do any good if your heatsink is not making a good contact with your cpu. I had the same problem some months ago. The little grease pad that came with the heatsink from the factory had dried up. I cleaned it up really good and bought some silicone thermal grease and it has been ok since.

[DiViNeLeFT]

check for dust in the heatsink fins... i cleaned mine out one time and my temps dropped 20 degrees celcius!!

[devinemi83]

Like the other two said, it is probably a heat issue. Dust your CPU and Power supply fans and MOBO with airblaster. Also could be your power supply is not sufficient, but I doubt it. Probably heat. If all else fail get a better cooling fan. A very high quality one would cost no more than 20-35. Very cheap.

[zzyzzx]

Take the cover off and see if it still does it. If the problem goes away it's heat related.

[vcdentro]

I've proved this but doesn't work, after a while it's frozen again, i've done almost everything, any other suggest?????

[Chips144]

Check your virtual memory size and especially check the amount of free space on your hard drive. At some point in time you may have had soem image files created that were not removed when the application quit. Also run disk cleanup and defrag your drive. Hope this helps.

[aguillon]

Either the heat issue (already well documented) or your hard disk is nearly full and the swap file becoming too big is causing your PC to crash, or your hard disk is extremely fragmented, or you have an insidious virus, or any or all of the above...

[zzyzzx]

Have you tried reformatting your HD and starting from scratch?

[grouch]

have you tried taking your power supply cover off and blowing it out real good.
most problems can stem from the power supply.
fan might intermittently stop or something causing excessive voltage or lowered voltage and that causes frequencies to change and things to get hot and stuff stops working and you have to buy new junk.
all signs point to heat in this case unless of course it has a virus that shuts you down at a certain time.
might wanna do a good virus scan too.
try removing your cpu blowing out from beneath it and reseating it.
reseat your ram too.
any more than that it's XP playing hell on you.
hope it helps

[zzyzzx]

have you tried taking your power supply cover off and blowing it out real good.

If your going to bother taking apart the power supply I'd recommend removing the power supply fan for proper cleaning and reinstall.

[vcdentro]

Hi i've done everything mentioned and the pc freezes after 1 hr, or 15 mins it's very unpredictible, do you reccomend to buy a brand new PSU???????

[zzyzzx]

Hi i've done everything mentioned and the pc freezes after 1 hr, or 15 mins it's very unpredictible, do you reccomend to buy a brand new PSU???????

Even reformatting the HD and reloading the OS?

[vcdentro]

yes even those things, any suggest????

[zzyzzx]

I can further suggest using one of those programs that tests your computers memory then if that's OK then mix and match parts until you find the problem.

[grouch]

sucks doesn't it. mine have done that from time to time and it gets really annoying.
you can use programs like sandra from fosi's site to test your configuration. however be careful if something is on the virge of dying it may actually put it over the edge and kill the component but then at least you will know the problem component.
i won't link you to fosi's site but i will rell you that you can kickme.to/ it.
if you need more info to get there let me know.

[tom28]

Well, the problem may also be that the overheating is slowly damaged the motherboard; thus, not up to the spec....you may have to replace your MB.

[tom28]

I just replaced my motherboard and all is working fine.

I had the same problem as the computer is randomly freezed and then had a hard time booting up. From past experience I knew it got to be the motherboard since I too restored the OS, slowed down the Ram at the CMOS, etc. without success.

[Boooooommm]

This is a motherboard issue, nothing else. Apparently your motherboard shuts your pc down when too much power is being used. My motherboard does it sometimes because it has a feature called PowerState which make my PC restart whenever it detects any strange power activities. This feature is good due to the fact that it protects your PC from surges, but it's very annoying though (I'm going to buy a new motherboard soon, i'm tired of this). It mostly happens with CPU intensive tasks, like video encoding and such. So, if you want to finish the problem, buy a new motherboard, also buy yourself a good powersupply with it (350 watts or more) so you can minimize any power problems.

[LanceSteel]

Well, since everyone seems to have an opinion as to what the problem is here is my opinion. I had this same problem for the last couple of weeks, the computer would boot up Win2K and after booting it would spontaneously reboot after a short time. I bought the mobo, cpu and RAM about 1.75 months ago and it didn't do this until a few weeks ago. During that time I had installed and uninstalled a bunch of different programs. So, I backed-up all my important files and reinstalled Win2K. Now there is no problem. You may just want to try a reinstallation of the OP sys before you buy any new components.

Also, my CPU never gets above 113F and the temp in the case is 90F. This was not a heat issue. Also, if the computer was allowed to sit after booting using a DOS boot disk, the computer would not spontaneously reboot.

[tom28]

Well, lol, I agreed that you shouldn't jump to any conclusion as to what really the problem is. I knew when the computer reboot, most of the time is the graphics card problem(driver also), then the RAM problem. Those were the major problems I encountered during the win3.1, win95 and win98 days. During those days, if the RAM is not compatible or running too fast, it always rebooted my computer. This time, on Win2k, and since I tried to turn down the graphics card acceleration, and slow down my RAM, also did off turbo on my CPU via Bios, restored the OS, and I still had the problem.....so the best guess after would be the Motherboard. Hope this help.