m9700 power's off by itself

AMD Turion 2.4 single core
dual 512 7900gs nvida graphics
2gb ram

*System never shuts down randomly with windows xp home*

February 2009: System worked perfectly, decided to reinstall windows. System shuts down randomly during windows install.

Sent to alienware for repair, they duplicated gripe, replaced CPU fan and heatsink. System works fine.

December 2009: system works perfectly, decided to install windows 7. system shuts down by itself randomly during windows install. after many tries windows 7 installs fully. system shuts down while in windows randomly.

decided to reinstall windows xp, system shuts down randomly, after many tries windows xp installs fully. SYSTEM DOES NOT shut down randomly.

So, the system will shut off randomly when you try to install an operating system, and if windows 7 is installed.

the system will NOT shut down randomly when XP is installed.

fans have been thoroughly cleaned, system does not run hot. Any ideas aside from a motherboard replacement?

 

Have you done any other tests? Run a scan on your hard disks to make sure they're not causing any issues.

 

just a quicky ....

is the drive partitioned if so you may need to completely format hard drive as it might be trying to boot into 2 operating systems

i.e like respawn has little peice of hdd for itself

might be no help but thats what comes to mind

 

One hard drive has been replaced because before I sent it in to alienware for repair i thought i had isolated the problem to a specific hard drive, there are 2 in this system.

I will run some diagnostics on the hard drives, or maybe try a one hard drive configuration.

There were no partitions when I tried to load windows 7 or xp, I make it a habit of always deleting any partitions and doing a full format when I install an OS.

I just find it really weird that the system shuts off by itself with windows 7, but does not with windows xp.

Obviously it is related to the problem where it shuts off by itself when it is in the bios, or engaged in installing an OS, but it is just a weird problem. I think that it is more likely something with the mobo than hdd's but who know's at this point.

 

Could be a coincident. You initial description sounds like a failing hard disk but it could also be the controller.

 

did another test, disconnected everything except power cable, booted into BIOS, and waited to see if it shut down by itself, it did. My understanding is that the hard drives are not in use when simply in the bios. Although there is traffic on the south bridge to detect the hdd's.

At this point I'm thinking the only resolution would be to replace the motherboard.

Although it seems very unlikely, does anyone think a graphics card could cause this kind of problem?