AboutHrire Mikaelian Expertise Windows 95/98/2000/XP/Vista workstation and Windows 2000/2003 server networking, Group Policy and wireless configurations. Have knowledge about workstation Ghosting, and also the ins and outs of hardware troubleshooting.
Experience 15 years of experience as a hobbyist and Senior Systems Administrator
Education/Credentials BA, BCom in Information Technology Management. No IT certifications. However, I have taken several Windows, Novell and Networking courses.
Question QUESTION: Dear Mr Mikaelian,
My computer keep shutting down by itself w/o warning. Some day I can use it for 5,10, or 1 minutes before it shut down and it is not even a heating problem. I dont know if it is virus or not so I try to scan it and during the scan, it shut down so there is no way I can fix the problem if it shut down during scan. What's the problem and what can I do. PLEASE HELP!!!!
ps. My computer is LENOVO 3000
thank you very much
sincerely,
Mitch Vannas
ANSWER: Hi Mitch.
Is this a laptop or a PC? Although you say it is not a heating problem, I suspect the CPU fan might be failing or failed. If you can open up the PC and take a look at the fan inside of the case, ensure it is spinning.
From what you describe, if the CPU or hard drive work hard, it impacts the PC and shuts it off.
Newer systems will automatically do that to prevent the CPU from getting overheated/damaged.
If it is under warranty, then you likely can get it repaired with no problems too.
Thanks, and let me know how it goes.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Dear Dr Mikaelian,
Well my heating problem seem to go away but suddenly I encounter another problem. It said
PXE-E61:media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF:exiting PXE rom
operating system not found
I dont know what the problem is b/c it just came out of nowhere when I started up my computer..are there any way I can fix this..Please help!!!! my class will begin soon and I need my computer to work
ps: and if I went to, let say circuit city, how much will the fixing cost?
thank you very much
sincerely,
Mitch
ANSWER: Hi Mitch
This sounds more like a boot problem PXE tends to be a network cable on some stations. Try plugging in your network cable and see if it works.
Also, try a simple restart a few times and see if it clears up. There may be a setting in the bios (it will prompt you to press F2 or F10 or F9 on startup) that for some reason has it scanning the PXE to boot to...that is the network card.
Go into the BIOS settings and ensure that the first boot device is actually your hard drive. I may be able to walk you through this, although I don't know exactly where it is in the Lennovo.
If you don't see it, there MAY be a hard drive problem. If your system is still under warranty, try calling Lennovo and see if they can walk you through a fix.
Repair costs vary. If there is no hardware failure they probably just will need to configure something and it might not cost much. If they need to replace a hard drive or motherboard, it could be $100-$200 I would guess.
I hope that gives some ideas.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Dear Mr Mikaelian,
So if I buy a new or used hard drive, will it solve the boot problem??
thank you very much
sincerely,
Mitch
Answer Hi Mitch.
If it is a hard drive problem, what you would need to do (or have someone do) is to reinstall your Windows software. Basically, Windows is sitting on your current hard drive. If it is the hard drive that is damaged, they would have to install all the files on the new hard drive.
If you have your copy of Windows that came with the laptop, you should have that handy for any technicians in case you need them to do a reinstall.
I hoep that gives you some insight and help. Let me know if I can help further.
