Crazy PC

irishproduce

Hey guys need help please. My PC keeps shutting it self down while i am using it. But it is shutting itself down alot faster than i thought possible. As in it will say ending prgram..****. and then shut down almost immediately. But that isnt the wierd thing, the weird thing is it turns itself on all through the night and will also turn itself off. I opened it today and cleaned out a bit of dust. I ran a virus check (mcaffee) and did a adware scan. So i think i cleaned it enough and it was running fine all day, but it has just done it again. I am afraid it is gonna do it again any minute. I cant type letters or anything because it keeps shutting down.
It is an Emachines 3220 Intel Celeron 2.8 Ghz

Any Ideas would be much appreciated please.

Thanks Eddie

Ginger

What OS are you running..

Also have you installed anything new (hardware software polar bears ;P ?)

Does it shut down with one particular program or all programs.

Are you fully patched and up to date. Is your virus scanner up to date???

Also what does your Event log say and are there dump logs been created?

Spunog UIE

bios wake on lan settings? got a firewall set up?

irishproduce

I am running xp home edition.
No new sodtware and i completely uninstalled mcafee to reinstall it again because my virus index had become corrupt.
I have mcafee firewall plus also everything is upto date.
Another guy told me to check bios or something but i really dont know how.
I am starting computers this month in college so hopefully this will help me understand thing a little better.
It happens with anything that is running. I dont think you understand, It turns itself on all throughout the night but will turn itself off again, its crazy!!

Anyway here is what the other guy said:
"The simple way to determine whether this is a hardware or software issue is to start
the computer into the BIOS setup program and wait to see if it shuts off. Before
you being the test make sure that all power saving settings are set for always on
in the BIOS.

If it does while displaying the BIOS setup program, you have a hardware issue and
should contact eMachines for warranty service. [Guess what I did this past Monday
on an out-of-the-box eMachines T6410.....if you said t/s a shutoff problem, you win
the prize! LOL]

If it does not, then it's likely you have a malware infection, especially if you
are on a broadband connection. The fact that things got better after a little cleanup
might be a good indicator that malware is present...you just have to do a better
job cleaning it out. Look for any recent post by regular poster Falcon and use the
link in his signature to get good cleaning instructions."

Do any of ye know what he is talking about???

Thanks
Eddie

Ginger

Ok time to dissect his explanation for you!

Right when you turn on your computer, if you press a certain key or key combo you will get into the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). This is a piece of flashable ROM (meaning you can update it rather having it completely Read Only) that starts your computer and does all the neccessary to get you to a state that you can load your OS. Its the the part that that also tells you computer what type of hardware you have installed.

With your eMachines computer when you turn it on you should see a piece of text such as Press Delete to Enter Setup or something similar. Press that key when you see the text and you will be into the BIOS. Now you need to look for the Power Saving section. Set all the values to be always on. So no Power Saving! Save the settings and restart the machine and again enter the BIOS screen

Now you play the waiting game and see does it restart! If it does well follow the instructions

If it doesnt, exit the BIOS and reboot to Windows. Open the control panel and change your Power settings to have nothing turn off (Hard Disks Monitors etc etc).

Malware are programs of the night . Now go looking for the user Falcon and his signature. In it supposedly there is links for rooting out these types of issues.

HTH

irishproduce

Thanks Ginger,
Ok so here is what i get when i enter power settings, you might be able to help here:
ACPI whats this?, anyway when i enter here i get this:
Suspend State: it is set to S3 state but there is the option of changing to S1 state???? what do i do here, do I leave it??
Then there is another setting as follows
Wake on LAN from S5: This is set to stay off but there is the option to change to Power On, What do i do here because i dont know what this setting means.
Do i turn this to stay ON?????


Thanks for your help,
Waiting for your reply

Eddie

KeRbDoG

Ive seen an option in the BIOS settings of a Dell highend workstation (dual 3ghz, 3gb ram etc) that allowed the system to power itself on at a certain time and turn itself off (the on parts I know 100% the off part im not too sure about, didnt wanna test it)

Ginger

First off ACPI = http://www.acpi.info/

ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is an industry wide standard that defines a power management and configuration mechanism for hardware and operating systems. ACPI defines six discrete power states. Lower states consume more power, but have a smaller latency on wake up.
S0 – Working
S1 – Sleeping
S2 – Sleeping
S3 – Sleeping
S4 – Hibernate
S5 – Off

So wake on lan is set to off, leave it there thats fine for the moment. Can you change you suspend state to S5 which is off.

I am bit rusty on power states as I dont use them that often

irishproduce

Right the thing is i dont think im explaining myself properly.

when i turn it on by pressing the button at the front it will come on for maybe 2 seconds nd switch off again but will come on again almost immediately. It will repeat this process many times SOMETIMES.

But the other times it will stay on for a maximum of about 5-6 mins.
I cant explain it any better.

HJere is something strage that happened today.
It was on and then went off again but when it turned itself on again a second later it went into CHKDSK and started checking the hard drive and this is what it did as a result:

Delete index entry ID 1198
Delete index entry ID 1198

And then something to do with this $SII of file 9

It completed what it was doing and then carried on booting into XP.

The thing is i didnt ask to do a CHKDSK because i know what this is i done one of these before.

I recently uninstalled security software to reinstall it but it has been acting weird lately.
I did an online scan and it was clear.
I have searched the net to find an answer but only found related issues.
I seen somewhere that dust can cause problems so i opened it up about 5 minutes ago and cleaned out some dust by blowing violently into it and its been about 5 minutes now and it hasnt turned itself off.
Im at my wits end with this, i have 3 years of free pc health checks with Pc world but dont want them rooting through all my stuff you know
Besides this year im starting programming and It support and all that stuff so i want to learn how to solve thees things myself.

Any other ideas.

PS this post was just to outline that the turning on and off isnt structured it just happens randomly and sometimes quickly with succession

Thanks
Ed


Any other ideas?????

Krusty_Clown

Are you sure it's not a problem with your electrical supply to the machine?
Probably a bit obvious, but did you try plugging a lamp into the wall socket that the computer is normally plugged into and make sure that it's operating properly?

Is it plugged into a LAN? Is it plugged into a router?
If not, then it's likely not a wake on LAN issue.

Try booting up from a CD (e.g. download a Knoppix Linux distribution) or if you have a Windows XP install CD, boot from that and see if it reboots/ randomly switches off. If it does continue to reboot, then it sounds like a hardware issue.

Could be a problem with your computer's power supply. Have you tried opening up the computer and checking that all of the connections are seated properly? (Unplug the power/keyboard/mouse/monitor cable etc first!).

Have you been over-clocking your hardware? Has anyone else?

On the chkdsk, Windows will launch this itself after a couple of failed boots..