Broken PC : why?!

[Dolby]

I bought a PC 4 month ago and after 3 months, it 'died'. As far as I know, the hardware seemes fine (or at least I'm not sure which part is misbehaving). Here's what happened ...

I leave my PC on 24/7 and one day I walked in the room and it showed a black screen with hundreds of numbers. I assumed a 'normal' Windows crash and rebooted. However, it got to the 'Windows' logo and rebooted itself. It kept doing this in endless loops. I tried safe mode, last known config, BIOS resetting etc etc but I couldn't do anything. The only thing was to boot from CD and format

Anyway, I assumed a surge or something and it worked well for a month. Yesterday, I walk in and BAM - the same thing happens! The PC does an endless loop and there is nothing I can do. The windows is legit and I haven't even put on much software! What can cause this? Most importantly, how can I fix it without formatting again?

Also, what is a memory dump? I *think* that appeared on the screen once.

 

[supersunbird]

Run a repair install of windows

You have it boot from the cd like usual, skip the first screen which says repair or install windows.

Then it will do the press F8 thing where you agree, then it will look for windows on your drive, then it will ask press R to repair windows or press ESC to install it new. Press R.

As to what the cause can be, maybe memory...

 

[killadoob]

it can be anything to be honest

as suyper said do repair if they does not fix it then you have a hardware problem

 

[mancombseepgood]

Memory dump

Also, what is a memory dump? I *think* that appeared on the screen once.

Bue screen? Maybe faulty RAM. Also - check your CPU temp in the bios...

 

[bdt]

Grab hold of a Linux live-cd and trouble shoot everything ELSE in the system. I usually use Ubuntu (mainly 'cos it's the easist for me to find on account of knowing where I filed the damn thing) ..but I'm thinking, in this case, to go with a Knoppix - mainly 'cos, IIRC, it's got a mode where you can boot to running Memtest86.

As far as CPU temp goes, what Ed sez abt checking it in BIOS is a good call -'cos that revs the CPU to 100% usage.

HTH
-bdt

edit: turns out Memtest IS available as a boot option on the 5.10 Ubuntu live CD afterall, silly me!

 

[guang]

Don't forget the PSU.I had a PSU problem,it kept giving me blue screen,and when I checked the voltage output in the bios, it was very unstable.

 

[Paulr]

Did you check your HDD for bad sectors?

 

[Zwick]

instead of re-installing:

Boot off the cd and load up the recovery console.
now go to the following directory - c:\windows\system32\config
rename the following files:
default - rename to default.old
sam - sam.old
security - security.old
software - software.old
system - system.old
now go to c:\windows\repair and copy the files you renamed back to the config directory.
eg: copy default c:\windows\system32\config
you have to do this for each of the 5 files.
once that is done just type exit, remove the cd and let the pc boot up.
Granted you will probably have to reinstall your drivers and a few programs (if you use nortons you WILL have to reinstall it) but at least its better than reinstalling the whole pc.
as soon as you get the pc running go to this url and save the file it downloads
http://www.passmark.com/ftp/bitpro.exe
This software sits on your pc running continuous tests on all your hardware and when its done provides an error report. from there you should be able to see where about you are having problems.

good luck!

 

[sludge]

Hey!!
I had exactly the same problem.
It turned out to be my RAM. Get memtest and try testing it, if I remember correctly you can run memtest from a bootable disc.

 

[Claymore]

Get hold of Ultimate Boot CD, boot off it, and run all the diagnostics you can.

 

[PearlJam]

I would suggest if you do the memtest and you have more than one ram module to run it seperately for each module as the test could run clean due to other modules working perfectly.

 

[Badger06]

if it's only 4 months old, i would definately return it to the shop i bought it from.

 

[scatlett]

Don't forget the PSU.I had a PSU problem,it kept giving me blue screen,and when I checked the voltage output in the bios, it was very unstable.

yeah, people underestimate the amount of problems caused by the PSU. What happens if you machine draws more power than your CPU can handle? Your standard PSU is around 200-250 watts. This is not enough for the new chips, graphics cards, etc...

People don't realise that every hard drive, every optical drive, everything draws power and its not in endless supply.