Crash crash crash creash AHHH

shampoo · December 3rd, 2002, 05:34 PM

My computer keeps on shutting down at random times
Like I'll be listening to music and playing a game when all of a sudden my computer just goes off.
When I turn it back on after that my startup ASUS voice thingy says "System failed CPU test" or something over and over.
So I turn it on again and it works.. For a while atleast..

This has been happening for about 3 days now and I'm tired of it.. It happens about 1 time every 30 minutes. Sometimes I can be on it for a long time without any problems and other times I can't even get to the windows login screen before it shuts down over and over.

I thought it might be a virus, but when I got McAfee and scanned it didn't find anything. I even updated McAfee with live update, but it still found nothing. So I'm completely confuzzled.. Please help if you know what I can do.

I run windows xp if that helps.

**GroundZero3** · December 3rd, 2002, 05:57 PM

what are the specs

eweruk · December 3rd, 2002, 06:05 PM

It could be a lot of things but most commonly, failing power supply, CPU getting too hot or dying. Check the event viewer to see if there are any events related to XP crashing the PC instead of hardware.

shampoo · December 3rd, 2002, 06:09 PM

AMD Athlon XP (2100+)
1.73 ghz
512 mb ram
running winxp home edition

KenKun · December 3rd, 2002, 08:35 PM

Most likely your PSU (power supply) is going south or it can`t keep up feeding your system ...

Try another better 350W PSU ... EnerMax Antec or Aopen are from the best IMO..

Regards

vass0922 · December 3rd, 2002, 08:38 PM

you can check event viewer to see if the system has logged any errrors (most times it doesn't

)

start --> run --> eventvwr

pc_dr.j · December 4th, 2002, 02:53 PM

IMO, it's either you've got some bad memory there or your hard disk has some bad clusters and it's on the verge of failing

Or it could be a mobo problem

Let's start with the memory first since it's easy to fix: Replace your memory with another Ram that you know works. If your computer doesn't conk out, then your RAM's got bugs and needs to be replaced.

For the harddrive, do a thorough scan disk; if during the scanning you hear noises in your HDD as if George Bush invaded Iraq an then suddenly your drive stops or fails to finish scanning, then it must be a harddrive problem and also needs to be replaced

Otherwise this could be a mobo problem

Mortis · December 4th, 2002, 03:02 PM

"Failed CPU Test"

The PSU suggestion is a GoodOne... also, so is OverHeating. You may not have adequate cooling for the CPU and/or Case and it slowly heats up when under intense apps like Gaming (100% CPU Use). The overheating could be caused by the above or it is struggling to get enough "Juice"- PSU... The XP2000+'s are power hungry. Either way, an overheated chip would generate the above error.

I would start with the cheapest- add cooling and see if the situation changes. If that doesnt work, I would swap the PSU.

GoodLuck!

Detritus · December 4th, 2002, 03:02 PM

I'm leaning towards power supply or heat related issues as well.

shampoo · December 7th, 2002, 08:51 PM

I didn't want to go out and buy anything before I knew for sure that it had something to do with the hardware.

So I waited a while and now I see that it only happens when I run this online game that I play.. I don't crash until sometime after I open the game. I have gone for hours without crashing when i didn't have the game opened, but when I open it my computer crashes within 20 minutes of the time I opened it.

But when I uninstall the game and reinstall it the same thing happens.

I have tried running adaware (don't ask me what that would do lol)

I tried reinstalling windows xp again

I even tried running the winxp disk and "repairing windows system files"

But nothing works... Any suggestions on this or should I go ahead and get some new hardware?