AboutMichael Troy Expertise I have a fair amount of experience in peer-to-peer networking using Windows 95/98. I can answer questions about hardware, networking software, protocol settings, etc. I have some client-server experience, but not a lot with Windows-based servers. I can also give some advice on home network security: VPN, firewalls, anti-virus, etc.
Experience I am the Director of Information Systems for a large law firm which connects about 300 users over five offices via a wide area network. We use client-server, peer-to-peer, WINS, remote access, VPN, DSL Internet, and proxy servers.
I also have a peer-to-peer network of six computers at home, with file and print sharing, remote access, and shared Internet access with a firewall.
Question QUESTION: Dear Mr Troy,
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
ANSWER: It sounds like a heating problem. Why are you convinced it is not? Try turning it on in SAFE mode and see if it still shuts down. If it does, that indicates it is hardware based (server overheating). If it does not shut down in safe mode, it would probably be software based. In that case, run MSCONFIG and see what programs or processes are running on startup. Disable most of them and restart. If it works, you can go back and reenable a few at a time until you figure out which one is causing the problem.
I hope this helps!
- Mike
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QUESTION: Dear Mr. Troy,
I am pretty certain b/c I have not used this computer since yesterday so it must not be a heating problem and it shut down randomly. Sometime I just started the system and it shut down completely, some time I play for 20 minutes and it shut down..
I have to write this quickly b/c I dont know when it will shut down again.
thank you very much
sincerely,
Mitch Vannas
ANSWER: That is a classic CPU heating problem. Either the fan on the CPU has failed, the air vents are blocked or the PC is too close to a heat source. What happens is when the PC is not used for a the CPU cools off enough to work. After being on for a few minutes, it overheats and fails. The exact amount of time it takes to fail can be somewhat random depending on room tempurature and other factors.
I would recommend opening the PC and looking at the cooling unit on the CPU to see if it is detached, or if a fan if it is working.
- Mike
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QUESTION: Dear Dr Troy,
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 in the morning after I shut down..so I can not doing anything at all. I dont know if it is a boot orders' problem but my boot orders are 1.ODD 2.HDD 3. LAN are there any way I can fix this..Please help!!!! my class will begin soon..
ps: and if I went to, let say circuit city, how much will the fixing cost?
thank you very much
sincerely,
Mitch
Answer The message means the comptuer cannot see the hard drive. I have had that problem with Lenovo desktops in the past. I find that simply opening the computer, taking the cable off the hard drive, then putting it back on fixes this problem. Also, going into the BIOS setup and disabling network boot (LAN) can also fix this.
