AboutMike Expertise Areas of expertise: PC Hardware, Peripherals, Barcode Scanners, Printers, and Applications, Networking, Microsoft Applications. I am good at researching issues and have a lot of contacts in the IT industry. So, if I can't directly answer a question I can likely find the answer.
Areas I won't be much help in: Apple Computers, Linux, older Networking technologies like Token Ring, or Thick/Thinnet.
Experience I'm currently a Network Administrator for a contract circuit board manufacturer in Oregon, USA.
I've been working on PCs from a hobby standpoint for better than 25 years. I've been doing it professionally for 4 years.
Question Why is my computer shutting down? This issue has been very frustrating. Several months ago, while running XP, my computer started to shut down sporadically--as if the powercord had been pulled out. No rebooting. No error msgs. However, it worked perfectly in safe mode. I would think that this should rule out overheating or power supply. (I have it plugged into a battery backup/) I also checked out the memory--and it is functioning perfectly. I recently upgraded to Vista Ultimate. The same problem occurred within a day. Again, it shut off sporadically, randomly. Next time, it ran perfectly for 3 days and then shut off. It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing at the time... or even if it's idle. Also... I've been unable to locate any *.dmp files that might help diagnose the problem. I am operating SpeedFan and the Temps seem ok (for example--Core is 36C. I have the latest drivers. When this first started happening, I took the computer into the guy who built it... and he could find no problems. Any suggestions what I can do at this point?
Answer A few different possibilities come to mind. My top two are either bad memory or a failing hard drive.
I'm not sure what RAM sticks you have to make up your memory listed but I would try pulling them all but one then see if the problem happens again. If it doesn't, then add back in each remaining stick and re-try. That should allow you to narrow down the bad ram stick if that is the problem.
RAM is probably not the problem because it should still shut down in safe mode if it were. However, it's something to eliminate.
The other hardware possibility is a failing hard drive. It is quite possible that your drive is starting to go bad. While running in normal mode the operating system might periodically hit a bad sector in the drive and cause the entire system to crash.
That might also explain why it doesn't do it in safe mode. Because not everything in the operating system runs during safe mode so it might not be using whatever application is hitting the bad sector.
You can right-click on your C: drive and go to the tools section and run a Error Checking. Tell the system to repair any bad sectors it finds, then restart and let it run. Once it's done it will show you a report and it'll list whether it found bad sectors or not.
Note, this is only a temporary fix. The operating system can't permanently save a dying hard drive so if it did find bad sectors I would replace that drive as soon as you are able.
The last possibility I can think of is a failing power supply. The system pulls more power during standard usage, which might cause it to shut down randomly if the power supply is starting to go bad and can't handle the extra demand.
