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My computer keeps restarting itself. What the #$&@ is causing it? — Page 2

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Warbler said:

interesting . . . I tried to put my computer in stand-by mode twice.  In both tries, it looked like the computer when to stand-by mode and then a few seconds later the computer restarted.    

 Sounds like a software glitch to me, reinstall windows or wipe everything and start again would be my course of action.

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Dust the fans/heatsinks.

~2004 was when the Capcitor Plague was in full swing (still is, sort of).  Which means ratty power in both your power supply, and your motherboard.

If it's the power supply, that's probably easily fixed as long as you can find a compatible power supply.  Which is going to be hard for a circa 2004 alienware, but not impossible. 

If it's the motherboard, you're probably c-o-l.  (Crap outta luck.)  They don't make 'em like they used to, and the only compatible motherboards are either ridiculously expensive, or more crap than the broken one you're replacing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Good luck!

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Johnny Ringo said:

Firstly, you deserve a medal for keeping a PC alive and running for 10 years. that's a fair effort. I think my best effort is about 3 years.

I didn't do much to keep it alive.   

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I'm wondering what specs a 10-year-old computer would have that would keep it still running at a satisfactory level nowadays--aside from the turning off issue. My parents are using a computer that I bought in like, 2009, and it is kept limping along by my constant attention. What wizardry is keeping yours alive?

(My Alienware had a similar issue, and it was hard-drive related. I also have some knee issues which stem from the same incident, since my laptop and I both fell down the stairs when I was running late for class one day.)

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My first pc was a Pentium II.

It lasted 13 years.

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Sometimes the lithium battery on the mother board can run down and make the PC act crazy. When was the last time you replaced it? Try replacing it and see if it helps. This battery is important to have in good working order for the bios operations.

FF

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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I buy a new computer every day so I don't have to do any updates.

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 (Edited)

Warbler said:

Johnny Ringo said:

Firstly, you deserve a medal for keeping a PC alive and running for 10 years. that's a fair effort. I think my best effort is about 3 years.

I didn't do much to keep it alive.   

 The laptop I'm writing this on was bought in 2002.

It works perfectly well, has never had a malware attack. It's even powerpc so the majority of browsers don't cater for it but it does me well enough... as long as I stay in 2002.

If you want to extend the life of an old computer something like Lubuntu or even Puppy should keep it going for a while.

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Hello all,  this is Warbler.  A few days ago, my computer died.  It won't completely boot up.   Everytime I try, it just restarts and restarts and restarts.   I will have to take it somewhere to get it looked at.   I hope at the very least, the hard drive can be saved.   Unfortunately, since I can't access my computer I can't access the email sent by Jay that had my password on it.  And of course, I cant remember my password.   I had things set up so I would always be logged on and would not have to enter the password.  But that only worked for my computer which is dead at the moment.   So, until such time as my computer is repaired, I am locked out of my original account.  I am using a borrowed computer at the moment. I tried contacting Jay twice about this over the past few days  and recieved no reponse.   I am pretty certain that he is unable to give me the password, I was hoping to get his permission to create a new temporary account.  As I said I recieved no reply.   After waiting what I thought was long enough, I decided to go ahead and create a new temporary account.  When I tried doing so using my original email address(I can still acces new messages, but the old ones are on the pc that is dead), the system told me my email addess was banned.   I can see that posts from my original account are not greyed out, so that account is not currently banned.   I suspect this has something to do with my account being banned years ago over the great rift.  Perhaps this is why my previous attempst at contacting Jay were unsuccesfull.   Anyway I then used an alternat email address and here I am.  What a mess.   

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Ouch, that sucks. I was wondering what the heck happened to you. Hopefully you get everything sorted out. I'm sure Jay will forgive you. :) Good luck with your computer.

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thanks, I certainly hope this is ok with Jay and the mods, I don't want to get in trouble for violating the no sock account rule.

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Have you PMed Jay to sort things out yet?

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I've sent him a PM.  It was the first thing I did after creating this account.  I have not yet heard back from him.

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meanwhile, please accept this as your temp avatar, in the hope that it gives you a chuckle.

http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/familylit/glossary/images/bird.gif

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Warbler-temp said:

thanks, I certainly hope this is ok with Jay and the mods, I don't want to get in trouble for violating the no sock account rule.

 I think you're safe so long as you clearly identify yourself.

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^Nice try :P 

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 (Edited)

Did you check that motherboard battery Warbler?

Symptoms of a Dead CMOS Battery

"A dead or dying CMOS battery may cause your computer to take a long time to boot up. This is because your computer has to actually recreate the BIOS settings from scratch every time you reboot. Figuring out the number and location of hard drives, the available amount of memory and other information necessary for booting may cause your computer to delay significantly. This can also cause the computer to run at the wrong speed, since the BIOS settings aren't retained. A computer with a bad CMOS battery may refuse to boot entirely."


Read more: http://www.ehow.com/list_6325644_symptoms-dead-cmos-battery.html#ixzz2tGbGmroV

“First feel fear, then get angry. Then go with your life into the fight.” - Bill Mollison

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 (Edited)

I presume you have access to another machine Warb (love the new avatar BTW you should keep it).

If you do try and download and boot this.

Usually you have to hold down F12 to get the alternate boot option.

It will analyse your hard disk to see if it's broken, it will allow you to rescue some files and it will clear viruses if you have them.

Well worth a try.

If you can boot this you can also boot another operating system (either a windows boot disc or something better like linux.

Good luck.

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curious, Jay has not yet read my PM.   Perhaps I should PM Moth3r.

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My old computer used to continually do that while it was on it's last legs... then it died. :/

If I were you, I'd back everything up as soon as possible.

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