A little Computer Help Please

jakelm

Hey guys and gals, this is a shot in the dark. I know this isnt a computer forum, but since this is my absolute favorite forum, I was wondering if any of you would know whats wrong and my lend some help.

My computer is shutting down. The tower is still running but the graphics/monitor is shutting down. And will not turn back on even after I move the mouse. I checked the power settings to make sure it is not set to turn monitor or go into standby mode. Sometimes it will stay on for days and sometimes it will only stay on for hours. I changed the power supply and graphics card, but that didnt seem to help. It still does the same thing. Fans are working properly, so I dont think overheating is the cause.

Another problem is, when booting up BIOS reads cannot find C drive. Press F1 to boot. I dont know if the 2 are related, but I did a hard drive reset (unplugged HD and reset it). Still reads the same thing.

Dell Deminsion 5100

Any Ideas?

Jake

polkatese

the first issue sounds like a "Hibernation" mode issue. Check the power saving tabs on your display properties in XP.

Second problem is related to CMOS battery needs to be replaced.

jakelm

But with Hibernation, after moving the mouse, the computer should turn back on, right?

I did not know if the CMOS battery was dead it would shut the graphics down?

jakelm

OK ...I missread what you typed..The memory battery is for finding the boot sequince. I will change that and hope it fixes the boot problem.

And then check the Hibernation again.

bobman1235

My guess would be (assuming it's not a hibernation thing) something on your MOBO is shorting out, causing the halfass shutdown.

AdamRagland

yea i would have to agree with bobman, sounds something with your motherboard. Similar thing hapened to me before. Had to replace the motherboard which can sometimes be not even worth it depending on what computer you own

Fireman32

Agree sounds like an issue with the mobo.

jakelm

I thought of the mobo error, but why would a short happen with such inconsistancy? Sometimes days, sometimes hours. If there was a short, then it would happen everytime and all the time, right?

And back to the hibernation thingy... wouldnt the computer go into hibernation at the same time every time? And when the mouse was moved, wouldnt the system come out of hibernation?

bobman1235

jakelm wrote:

I thought of the mobo error, but why would a short happen with such inconsistancy? Sometimes days, sometimes hours. If there was a short, then it would happen everytime and all the time, right?

Intermittent errors are a head-scratcher, for sure, but I still think it sounds motherboard related.

Hibernation is recoverable, you should be able to move your mouse and have it come back. Really the only reasonable things that could be going wrong would be hardware-related. It's obviously not any kind of serious short because then all power would shut off.

I also had a similar problem one time when I had a bad memory chip. Every time a certain cell in the memory was accessed (I assume) the computer just shut down.

jakelm

I could try a different ram cards. And replace the CMOS battery. Every other error has some kind of error messege except this.

It is a head-scratcher. If it would happen everytime at the same time, I could diagnose the problem. But being it happens so sporaticly, I'm lost.

Thanks for all the trouble shooting ideas, I really appreciate it.

Systems

jakelm wrote:

I could try a different ram cards. And replace the CMOS battery. Every other error has some kind of error messege except this.

It is a head-scratcher. If it would happen everytime at the same time, I could diagnose the problem. But being it happens so sporaticly, I'm lost.

Thanks for all the trouble shooting ideas, I really appreciate it.

Heres a memory test program you can run too:

http://www.memtest86.com/memt32.zip

WilliamM2

Have you checked the event log for errors?