XP problems

I am working on a friends computer with XP and it turns off after booting to the desktop. I booted in safe mode and removed Blubster thinking that was it. nothing. and if i try to run spybot, adaware, or stinger in safe mode the computer shuts off after a little bit during the scan. is it being shutoff when it scans a certain file? Originally the pc did boot normally but shut down when trying to uninstall anything or running any scan. after i booted into safemode and removed blubster it doesnt boot normally except for the few seconds of desktop i see. i did run ccleaner in safe mood to clear cookies, temp files, etc in an attempt to clear places something could be hiding. then for the heck of it i ran the registry cleaner and i did back up the registry before i had ccleaner delete what it found. should i restore the registry and see if i can boot normally? is there anything i can do? im out of ideas. she has no cd's or i would restore/clean install. what i was able to get out of system properties the pc is an AMD bases Asus desktop. ~1.5GHz with 512Mb ram. anyone have any advice? the best i have for my friend now is to open the window and give it a toss (we are on the 4th floor). i could call our schools IT dept but they are worthless. (we use cisco clean access on campus and its not very vista friendly, clean access doesnt come out of sleep or hibernate. their advice was not to use sleep or hibernate because they cant fix it.) sorry if im rambling, im goin to have a smoke before i kick her computer.

 

You say it is turning OFF--do you mean rebooting?

If it is actually turning OFF (as in shutdown to no power state), your issues are most likely HEAT (especially since the turn off keeps being proceeded by intense cpu usage (any kind of disk scan will result in hihg cpu usage, which means the CPU is running hot).

Open it up, clean out the dust bunnies, and if possible run a small fan across the insides to keep it cool (is the CPU fan still running?)

The AMD CPU will shut itself down when it gets to hot to avoid a meltdown.

It could also be a failing power supply, though heat is the greater likelihood.

 

it is turning OFF. not rebooting. which reminds me, when i had a spyware toolbar (thanks school network) years ago it rebooted my pc when the file was scanned not turned off.

ill check it out after the smoke and report back. thanks

 

no luck. cleaned the fans out which the cpu fan was solid dust, surprised its working at all. CPU is running about 70 degrees C.

 

At idle, you should generally be around 35 to 45 celcius (at the most).

70 c is very hot to be running at idle. Any kind of even normal activity is going to bring that CPU up into the danger area and cause it to shut down to protect itself from burning out.

Who put this puppy together? Has it always done this?

It could be (if this is recently constructed PC) that an inadquate amount of thermal paste was applied between the CPU and heatsink--or, there is an air pocket in paste.

Either way, I would be taking it apart and putting it together again with some arctic silver very carefully

 

i thought that was a little high but wasnt sure because i know my P4 ran a littler hotter than most say is average but never reached 70 at idle. she told me the pc is about 3 years old. when i was cleaning it of all the dust bunnies i couldnt even get the heatsink off of the cpu. ive taken the heatsink off of a few computers before to clean it and never had a problem. i tried pushing, pulling, and anything else on the lever but it doesnt budge. it it ran fine for 3 years is it possible that something got fried in the cpu from running hot and is now causing it to always run hot? i know next to nothing about things like this, i can put a computer together and plug my way around doing things but thats about it. she said she watched an enitre dvd movie on it last night and it didnt shut off. does a playing a dvd from the drive not use the cpu too much? i didnt check the temp while she was watching it but at boot it asus probe says it is 70 and the threshold for a warning is set at 80. and before i cleaned it out at boot the warning was going off. like i said i have no idea but it sounds to me liked something got screwed up from the heat.

beyond the temp, is there any software issues that would cause it to turn off? ive never seen any, just reboots from system instability. i appreciate any and all help.

 

Not software. Complete shut offs are symptomatic of heat and power issues (failing power supply)

Does playing a movie result in more CPU....hmmm, good question. Probably depend on the hardware on the machine. Some machines have hardware decoding for dvd movies, which would mean very little work for the CPU, so less heat, while others would decode using software, resulting in more work for the CPU.

 

well i have no way to test the power supply. so i guess she is out of luck as to what i can do to it. i guess ill tell her to take a loan out and take it to a shop. dont know what else to do at this point for her. thanks for the quick replies.

 

I am still pretty certain it is a heat issue, more than power supply.

If you want, remove a power supply from a different machine and just hook it into her computer (you do not need to actually install it, just set it next to it and feed the connectors from the known good supply into the computer.)

It is almost certainly heat, though. 70 degrees is way too hot. Yes, heat could have damaged it so it is no longer working correctly, but I would say you need to get the heat down with a new coat of thermal paste

 

ill try again to get the heatsink off its not mine so im afraid of prying to hard and breaking it.

 

usually, you can break the bond by twisting it left and right (like you are turning a know), but I have also bent pins that way...sometimes, I've pulled the heatsink and the cpu pops out with the heatsink, even though the lever was never released (ouch)

it's a crap shoot, no doubt....might want to take it to a reputable repair shop