Major crash problem! (Help its my mum's computer!)

[LittleAuzzie]

Ok so my mum's got her office computer, about 2 years old now, and all of a sudden when the computers been on for an extended period of time it jsut reboots itself to dos and then as its post-ing, rebots over and over again until u turn it off, leave it for like an hour, and start it up again. I'm assuming its a heat problem but not too sure cause it doesnt seem to be running too hot. I have replaced the HDD thinking it was that but have had no success... Any thoughts ass to whats wrong? E.g. PSU, actual chip, memory, ????? HELP! Mum's Spewin!

Mate these fair-dinkum contraptions are bloddy alright... Pity they can't jump as high as a kangaroo!!

 

[folken]

Is it dust free inside? or does it have 2years of buildup in it
Are you able to see the temps from windows? or at least see the idle temps in the bios?
What are it's specs roughly?

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[LittleAuzzie]

Hehe nah its faily clean inside. I cant get into the bios as it was bought through a package deal and like only god knows how to get into the bios... P4 1.0ghz celeron, 384mb ram, onboard sound & video.

Mate these fair-dinkum contraptions are bloddy alright... Pity they can't jump as high as a kangaroo!!

 

[folken]

What os is that running? Probably 98 or even worse Me?
That does sound more like a hardware problem but you never know with a 2yr old 98 or Me install Especially with crashing, dos based OSs don't take to kindly to crashing.

Have you tried leaving the side off or something? or feeling the heatsinks after a while to see if they are extremely hot? At least start it up w/ the side off to make sure all the fans are spinning properly.

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[LittleAuzzie]

Windows xp home. CPU fan is running, ut i just noticed while its only a p3 1.0ghz with onboard everyhting, the psu is 100w max.... i know that a p4 system needs at least 250, 100 seems too little... ALso memtest86 is coming up with a few errors.... not many, but like 5. Thats not good, right?

Mate these fair-dinkum contraptions are bloddy alright... Pity they can't jump as high as a kangaroo!!

 

[folken]

100watts could be an issue but if it has been runnin for 2 yrs w/ it and it lasts any amount of time I don't know that that would do it. Unless the fan in it isn't cooling it properly or there is dust buildup in it. I'd try a diff psu in it before buying one though, borrow it from another comp or something.

Errors in memtest are definatly bad though I don't know how bad only 5 are. Do you have any different ram you could try in it? test each module and see which one is givein the errors then try using the comp w/ only the good module in there. winxp will still boot w/ 128 or 256mb of ram, it will just be a tad slow

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>