Computer turns self off and on or just off!!

I really don't know what catagory this would go under. I have a Windows XP computer AMD Athlong 2100 CPU, Abit KX7-333R motherboard, AMD thermal colling system, 1 gb ram, 80 gb hd slave, 80 gb hd master, DVD drive and burnerATI all in wonder radion 8500DV 64MB video card. This computer will either shut itself off and on by itself or completely turn it self off. I thought the problem was because my wall electric plug in was not grounded (which I had fixed), but it still seems to enjoy doing this!! I have had the computer checked out by a tech and he couldn't find anything wrong with it. The only time it does this is when I am either working with video editing or with photos. I also have a monitor to tell me if its overheating and no problem there. Can anyone please help me with this problem! Thanks

Hi Tammy, Welcome to windrivers. It sounds like a driver issue combined with Wake On Lan.

I have had several problems with third party ATI cards 7000 - 9200 series with 2k/ XP and have found that it either hung or rebooted the system. You could try installing the latest drivers for your card and see if that helps. As for the starting up of the PC - I would look into the BIOS (usually DEL or F2 on boot up) under advanced settins or periphials and disable WAKE ON LAN.

I hope this helps...

Good Luck.

Thanks so much for your advice. I have been trying to find out what the problem could be for 3 years now!! If after I download the drivers and check the WAKE ON LAN and it still is having problems, do you suggest maybe getting a new graphics card? I am willing to put another graphics card in and all I do is photo editing and video editing, no gaming. I have changed everything in my computer except the graphics card and the power supply, but I had a tech tell me the power supply was fine and not heating up. (This is the same guy that told me there wasn't anything wrong with my computer and he could never get it to turn off at all). Thanks, Tammy

the WAKE ON LAN was disabled and I am not finding any drivers for my ATI card. Do you have any other suggestions? I am on that computer now and as long as I am doing stuff like web surfing or just general work, it never shuts down. Thanks

I would check the power supply. Something could be drawing too much juice and the PSU could be a problem if it has become faulty in some way.

XP is set by default to reboot when it has a problem

Turn off this by right clicking my computer, properties, advanced tab, startup and recovery button - uncheck the automatically restart box...

Next time it decides to restart, it will BSOD (blue screen of death) then you can see what XP has a problem with. Make an accurate note of entire message and post it here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BOB IROC

I would check the power supply. Something could be drawing too much juice and the PSU could be a problem if it has become faulty in some way.

---

Thanks but the power supply was checked and ok.

Just a thought as I have run into many situations where power supply appears to be OK, but it was actually the problem of the BSOD's and power cutoff problems. Usually when a computer comes on automatically when plugged in, there is a problem with the PSU, Motherboard, or power switch.

Did you try my suggestion yet?

Hi, yes I did and it was working fine for me the other day. I was doing some really ruff graphics. Then in a couple of days I started it up again, was just surfing the net and it shut down. No blue screen and I checked and the Automatice Start Up is unchecked. Any other suggestions? Thanks

Control panel, administrative tools - event viewer. Any red or yellow warnings?

there are none that I can see

oh..........I take that back........there are yellow warnings in the system folder and one of them isn't a yellow warning but it said this at the time it shut down.......The WMI Performance Adapter service entered the stopped state. Does that help?

No it doesn't .Typically WMI has no issues in XP...unless there is a problem with your video card, or the like. Like Noo said, there should be a BSOD and/or an event log of the issue. Be patient and wait for it. THEN we can help you...when we really know what the problem is.

It is a long shot, but sometimes the cheap little power and reset switches in the case cause this kind of behaviour.

Try disconnecting the power switch and the reset switch.

You can use the end of a screw driver (very carefully) to short the power switch connector to start your system. If the problem continues, the the switches are probably OK. Hook them back up, and move on to other diagnostics.

If the problem goes away, hook up the power switch. If the problem comes back, it's probably the power switch. If the problem doesn't come back, hook up the reset switch and see what happens.

I have seen systems that spontaneously start themselves, spontaneously reboot themselves, spontaneously shut themselves down, or spontaneously start to POST and immediately reboot and reboot and reboot.

A neglected K62 toy Linux box started up in my home office all on its own one day. It beeped during POST, then rebooted itself, beeped again, and shut itself down. It performed variations on this theme all afternoon and drove my wife to a state of alarm. When she found what was making the beeping, she started paging me at work. The problem was a flaky power switch.

But wouldn't an issue show up every time it shuts itself off? :confused:

I think you missed the word "flakey" meaning that sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't

Just wanted to update that the computer has shut down 5 times today......waited about 15 minutes to restart. I was using 1 application and printing when the shut downs started. I checked the events every time I did restart, but nothing there. Been keeping an eye on the temp and it stays around 143 F. I do appreciate all your help. Thanks

What is the temperature set at for shutdown in the bios?

143F is about 61C which is a bit high for an idle temperature.

It should alarm me at 158 F. I have been doing strees tests this afternoon on my motherboard and other items. Everything was runing fine until I did a video card test. The test was just getting going and the computer shut down. I am presuming my card is bad and that has been in my mind for all along because my problems would only happen when I was doing graphics. What do you think? And thank you for your time.

It's a good possibility and easy enough to test.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tammy1999

Just wanted to update that the computer has shut down 5 times today......waited about 15 minutes to restart. I was using 1 application and printing when the shut downs started. I checked the events every time I did restart, but nothing there. Been keeping an eye on the temp and it stays around 143 F. I do appreciate all your help. Thanks

---

Well geesh, now we would be looking at motherboard and/or memory problems....or soooo many other things.
Listen, you said that the PSU was checked. What is the name brand of it please. Also, what ram do you have (sorry if this has been asked before), and what video card (which also has "memory" on it"), and what are all the details of your pc. NooNoo has a link for a program called Everest in her sig. How about you copy and paste that info for us as well as a Hijack This log. This could be many things, and we need to narrow it down, or we could be here forever. Remember, we are NOT sitting there at your pc, which would really help us at this point, so we need to use your eyes and impressions. Help us to help you. :thumbs:

Here is the report. I hope this helps. Thanks again

--------[ EVEREST Home Edition (c) 2003-2005 Lavalys, Inc.

Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name TAGLE
User Name Tammy Adams

Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 1733 MHz (13 x 133) 2100+
Motherboard Name Abit KX7-333R (6 PCI, 1 AGP, 4 DDR DIMM)
Motherboard Chipset VIA VT8367 Apollo KT333
System Memory 1024 MB (PC2100 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (06/05/02)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500DV (64 MB)
Video Adapter ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500DV (64 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon 8500 (R200)
Monitor Compaq MV720 [17" CRT] (9311803)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Creative SB Live! Sound Card

Storage:
IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller HPT372 UDMA/ATA133 RAID Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive IOMEGA ZIP 250
Disk Drive WDC WD80 0BB-00CAA1 SCSI Disk Device (74 GB)
Disk Drive WDC WD800BB-00JHC0 (74 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive BENQ DVD DD DW1625 (DVD+R9:2.4x, DVD+RW:16x/4x, DVD-RW:8x/4x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:40x/24x/40x DVD+RW/DVD-RW)
Optical Drive DVD-ROM
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 76316 MB (58448 MB free)
G: (NTFS) 76308 MB (70232 MB free)
Total Size 149.0 GB (125.7 GB free)

Input:
Keyboard HID Keyboard Device
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse HID-compliant Mouse
Mouse Logitech-compatible Mouse PS/2

Network:
Network Adapter Linksys USB 2.0 10/100 Adapter (192.168.1.2)
Modem Intel(R) 536EP Modem

Peripherals:
Printer EPSON Stylus Photo 825
USB1 Controller ULi/ALi M5237 USB Open Host Controller
USB1 Controller ULi/ALi M5237 USB Open Host Controller
USB1 Controller ULi/ALi M5237 USB Open Host Controller
USB2 Controller ULi/ALi M5273 USB 2.0 Host Controller
USB Device Generic USB Hub
USB Device Generic USB Hub
USB Device Linksys USB 2.0 10/100 Adapter #2
USB Device USB Composite Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device

Right after I made the last post, my machine clicked off, so I am finishing with my other computer. I had also thought it was a corrupted file. Put in a new hd and reinstalled Windows XP, still the same thing. Thanks for all your help and I hope I sent all the information needed.

I've now read back this whole thread...something I should have done before :eek2:, and I note several possibilities with the video card, including the one I mentioned having to do with WMI, as well as Garak's post. So, since you have exchanged everthing but the video card and psu, and you have a second pc, how about trying the video from the 2nd pc in the problem one?
Also, rather than swapping all components, try this now: run you pc with nothing but a video card and ram connected. In other words, try your system with minimal hardware, including using only one stick of ram.
Also, very interesting that the other tech had no problems with this issue, which would lead some of us to believe it may be a power issue outside your pc: a surge protector/ups/outlet issue.
We need to narrow everything down before we can come to a possible conclusion. Good luck.

Thanks so much for helping me with this. I can't put the video card in my other pc because it runs of Win 98 and there isn't a socket. I will try disconnecting all hardware except the video card and cd rom which boots my computer. I need to change that back to A drive. The outlet has been checked and this computer has been in 3 different houses with the same problems. It is connected straight to the power supply, which I know is a bad thing. THanks

You can leave the drives attached. Plus, now you have pretty much eliminated the outside the box power issues.
I'm not sure what you mean by the vid card. I meant you can take the video card out of the 98 machine and put it in the XP machine temporarily, to see if the issue goes away.
Also, to eliminate video driver issues, you can press F8 at startup and boot into VGA mode. It wont look as pretty, but it could help us diag this. Another problem I noted is that you mention that this only happens some of the time, and it works perfectly for days at a time on other occasions? More great news...:eek2:
btw, where did you search for video drivers? Have you been here:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...ge&folderID=27

Trip the 98 box might be onboard video only....

Another area of your BIOS to check is usually in the power management settings (check your manual). The computer's state after a power loss may be set to "on" meaning that any events like momentary brownouts which cause the computer to shut off will be followed by the machine automatically rebooting. For that matter, you may even experience smaller voltage drops which don't actually shut the computer down, but will reboot it. Could be that you have an overloaded circuit which drops out under heavy loads or an inadequate (but not malfunctioning) power supply.

The video drivers were from ATI and when I downloaded them, it made the problem even worse. So, I uninstalled all of them. I talked to ATI the other day and since my board is out of warranty, no luck therer and they didn't have a solution either. And when it does work ok for days at a time, is when I am only surfing the net or not doing much on the computer. But it does seem like the problem is getting worse than it was a couple of years ago. I will try the other board and see what happens and disconnect the zip drive and the other hd and and see what happens.

Hi, the video card from my 6 year old Win 98 computer wasn't a good idea to put in my other computer. I thought I was going to have to shoot it to put it out of its misery. It didn't like it at all. Anyway, I unplugged everything except the a and c drive and so far so good, but the temp is still the same when its idling at 141 F.

Also, I have been running the video test again just to see what would happen and nothing has happened for over 30 minutes now. I turned off the computer and replugged the slave drive and the 2 dvd drives and left the zip drive unplugged. I will do some serious photo editing and then see what happens. Again, thanks so much for your help in the past.

It finally happened. I was surfing the net and the blue screen popped up and this is what it said............Driver_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL..... ..then it went on to say at the bottom....afd.sys-address EFEBB665 base at EFEBB000, DateStamp 41107eb5. Then I hit the button to turn off the computer and it wouldn't start back up for about 15 minutes as before. I hope this helps with the problem now.

OK, for definite it's a driver that's causing the problem... AFD.sys is part of the network drivers - specifically the TCP/IP stack.

Possibilities:
You have or had spyware/viruses/trojans that corrupted the tcp/ip stack
You have a network adapter that is causing similar problems

What do you use for anti- virus?

First firs, get your XP cd - put it in the drive and click start, run and type in
SFC /SCANNOW
click ok

XP will ask to reboot to perform the check - follow the wizard.

This will put back the orginal files... which means that you will need to visit windows update again afterwards.

See how that goes.

I have Norton and its updated and on at all times. I did the scannow and half way through it, the computer shut down and I have tried 3 different times since then and can't get it to make it 1/4 of the way through without the computer shutting down. At this point I am ready to reinstall windows, BUT I need to burn a few files on CD before I can do that and it won't let me do that either. When ever I put the cd in the driver, it shuts down. I have a brand new hd and was wondering if I can take out the mast hd and replace it with the new one and then start the Windows xp cd and reinstall windows. Do you have to have the new hd reconized before I can reinstall windows? And if that worked would be able to use the old master hd as the slave hd and get my files off of it or will there be a problem of the OS being on both drives? Then I can reformat the old drive after that. HELP!!!!

Perfect solution... you need the new hard drive to be recognised by bios - then boot from cd and xp will install, after you agree to the EULA and it copies a bunch of files, it will request a partition on which to install windows.
At that screen you can create the partition(s) you need and format the one you are going to put windows on.

I personally always create a 10-15gb partition just for windows and the major programs like office. All the data I put on a separate partition so that if I ever need to reinstall windows (assuming my hard drive is ok) I will not lose any data.