My Pc's Knackered!

[Biggin]

speaking of bananas, my pc is knackered, first the mouse and keyboard stopped working, so i replaced them with usb equivalents, then it turns itself on and off when it feels like it. Anyone got any ideas, I just had a new motherboard last Sept so dont wanna spend too much on it. It currently restarts after windows opens and I need someone to have a look and give me an honest opinion.



Admin edit: I've moved this post to the correct sub-forum

 

[UltraSBM]

have you cleaned the inside of the pc? (dust is a killer lol)
how old is the hard drive?
what make is the hard drive? (DON'T tell me it's Maxtor! lol!)
It turns itself ON you say?:s
what motherboard do you have?

 

[Lisa]

Sorry to sound like a complete nuffy but by PC do you mean IBM, or do you have a Mac? (I ask because I always thought PC stood for Personal Computer and in that case youre either an IBM person, or a Mac person. But I digress.)
If you have a Mac, I know that over here alot of Macs were sent back to Apple cos they would shut down shortly after youd start em up (a dire case of random system shutdownosis so maybe if you have a Mac, that what may be the cause?
But dont take any notice of me - I may be a gadget whore, but Im not that tech-savvy (I only just found out today that WiFi is pronounced 'why-fi', not 'wee-fee'.

 

[Wookie]

(I only just found out today that WiFi is pronounced 'why-fi', not 'wee-fee'.

Bit like me with SCSI (Small Computer System Interface, acronym fans ); everyone else says "scuzzy", I say "sexy".

I think mine's nicer...

 

[Lisa]

Bit like me with SCSI (Small Computer System Interface, acronym fans ); everyone else says "scuzzy", I say "sexy".

I think mine's nicer...

Definitely nicer.

 

[db]

Sorry to sound like a complete nuffy but by PC do you mean IBM, or do you have a Mac? (I ask because I always thought PC stood for Personal Computer and in that case youre either an IBM person, or a Mac person. But I digress.)

depends on how pedantic you want to be over semantics.. PC does indeed stand for "Personal Computer", but you would never hear any self-respecting Mac user call his beloved style-over-content fashion box a "PC"!

IBM haven't made PCs for a couple of years now, but yeah you're thinking along the right lines.. PC typically means a Microsoft Windows machine, and a Mac runs Apple's Mac OS..

(and i said typically before you linux/unix bummers start getting your kernels in a twist)..

Bit like me with SCSI (Small Computer System Interface, acronym fans ); everyone else says "scuzzy", I say "sexy".

lol that's brilliant.. i might start using that at work..

 

[Biggin]

It is a PC, running XP and unfortunately it is a Maxtor and the Mother board is p4i65G says asrock on it, when i say it turns itself off it shuts itself down about a minute after switching on. It won't always switch on with the first or second press of the on button. It was quite dusty before and i carefully cleaned it out, but i'm stumped and don't really have the dough for any more expensive repairs. It is probably 3 years old but have had extra ram put in at xmas and was working pretty good until the keyboard and mouse ports packed up.

Help

 

[Biggin]

Sorry to sound like a complete nuffy but by PC do you mean IBM, or do you have a Mac? (I ask because I always thought PC stood for Personal Computer and in that case youre either an IBM person, or a Mac person. But I digress.)
If you have a Mac, I know that over here alot of Macs were sent back to Apple cos they would shut down shortly after youd start em up (a dire case of random system shutdownosis so maybe if you have a Mac, that what may be the cause?
But dont take any notice of me - I may be a gadget whore, but Im not that tech-savvy (I only just found out today that WiFi is pronounced 'why-fi', not 'wee-fee'.

IBM's.... havent heard of them since the end of the cold war. I am familiar with Mac's however find PC's running windows more user friendly, just my opinion.

 

[Lisa]

... hey. I DID say I wasnt up to speed with computers!
Did you get your computer issues worked out yet?

 

[Biggin]

No Lisa, I am in need of some help from an expert.

 

[Hatred]

So say random shutdowns, especialy after a short time.

This coulld indeed mean a vast variety of things unfortunately, but one possability is overheating. Pentium based systems tend to shutdown if they rapidly overheat, where athlons ones .. well they tend to blow up. BIOS settings may also have a safety feature activated that shuts downt he pc before its too late. If you have had this machine for quite a while, then that doesnt suggest a cooling problem.. but theres a small chance a fan or somthing could have gone kaput. If you can, i reccomend opening up the case and switching the pc on.. if any fans are not spinning especialy the cpu fan then there ya go. You can also gently place a finger to the side of the heatsink, the large chunk of metal that the cpu is underneath and the fan sits on top of. If its really hot to the point of almost burning, then again, that seems it would be too hot.

Other possabilities include a motherboard failiure, which is difficult to test for.

Have you also tried booting in safemode during startup? theres a small chance it could be software related in some way, as windows sometimes shutsdown if it feels somthing critically screwed up is running.

Alas id need more details to be a bit more specific, but i hope that gives you a few ideas