Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

[Bob From Accounting]

My computer shuts down when I open folders or a movie in media player or when i try to scan the computer with antivirus programs.

no 30 sec warning like with the worm virus, it shuts down when it works too much i guess, I monitored the CPU and memory usage, the cpu went up and the memory stayed the same when it shutdowned (is that a word?)

[img]/images/graemlins/help.gif[/img] Anyone ?

[YetAnotherOne]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

My sister's Sony Vaio notebook was doing this, it turned out to be a bad battery though the problem occurred both while running on battery and while running on AC. If it's a notebook and if you've had it a while you might look into that.

[ApeDosMil]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

Could be bad ram, try this

http://www.memtest.org/

[finnman]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

My wifes comp was doing the same thing. It was bad Ram.
Finn

[Bob From Accounting]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

[ QUOTE ]
Could be bad ram, try this

http://www.memtest.org/

[/ QUOTE ]

Even though the memory usage didn't change before shutdown ?
How do you get that test on a floppy ? all i get is the "memtest86+-1.51.iso" file ?

Edit: actually bad ram would make sense, cause it froze a couple of times earlier, instead of restarting

[finnman]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

Copy to floppy, then reboot comp with floppy in drive.

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

I had 2 Alienware's that did the same thing, turned out to be the board in both cases...

Pat

[SeventhSon]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

Yes, run a mobo diagnostic. Usually downloadable from the mobo manufacturer.

[ApeDosMil]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

you need a program that can take the ISO and set it to floopy, there should be directions on the site.

do you have 2 sticks of ram?

take one out and see if it still does it. if it does, take the other out and put the one you took out earlier in.

[Somnuszoth]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

if your running windows, it really likes to have the exact sticks of ram if you have more than one. but sounds more then likely a bad ram stick.

[VanOsbourne]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

Like the others said probably bad ram (damn near 90% of all computer problems these days).

But it could also be a loose stick of ram. Make sure they are all locked in thier slots.

[Bob From Accounting]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

I got that program running, it froze down all the time at 34% but after awhile it ran abit further and was just going "koko-kaka" listing errors in red at bottom of the screen.

I didn't think it could be the RAM cuz the usage didn't go up much in the Ctrl+Alt+Del-Performance monitor. That's why i guessed power supply

I only have one 512 stick of RAM, I'll see if i can borrow from a friend tomorrow and test, but it looks like I'm gonna be ordering a new stick or two

Thanks everybody! [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

[VanOsbourne]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

Bob, could you list for me your specs on your computer.

This could be a vid card overheating problem to a bad hard drive.

What vid card do you have?

What hard drive?

What cpu & mhz?

Before you go out and buy anything I would suggest you re-format first.

[finnman]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

I would try swapping Ram first..
Refomating sucks.
just my 2 cents

[ApeDosMil]

Re: Comp help needed: Virus or bad Power supply ?

reformating wont fix it. its obviously bad ram if it failes memtest.