Computer basically shuts off, but you have to unplug it for minutes to restart

[mckes21]

Okay, This is driving me crazy and hopefully someone who is really good with computers can help. Randomly for no reason at all it basically shuts down, but the power light blinks and you have to unplug it from the back of the computer and wait till the light stops blinking and then plug it back in and turn it on and hope and pray that it will not do it again till your done with what ever you needed to do. This desktop has Windows xp home sp 2
Any help would be great.

 

[tipstir]

Okay....

1. could be bad PSU (power suppy unit)
2. could be the CPU insink blade is full of dust
3. could be the inside the case it just way to dusty and if you smoke the hash is clogging the CPU
4. could be bad memory going or has gone
5. could be a video card that boots up okay but later shutdowns
6. could be trojan, virus, worms, bad cookies, adware, malware
7. could be the HDD is failing

Not 6 you could download and run spyware terminator to fix that problem
Everything else should be check out..
Check the system event logs to see if you got any errors..

 

[mckes21]

wow, fast reply.
Okay, I actually know its not number 6, I keep very up on that, yes I am a smoker, but not in my house or van, but dust is a constant irritation for me as I am a total germ freak, so I will pull it out and open it up and clean it out, is their anyting I can do to check the power supply or memory to see if its going bad.

 

[tipstir]

Well this happens.. If you have can of dust remover or better yet an electric leaf blower. Might sound strange but it does work. Blow out the system but be careful not to use max settings. Some Vaccum cleaners have a blower feature also.

I would remove the dust from the case and PSU first. See how that goes. If it still does it then replace the PSU. Or you can do the profile delete trick under the safe mode using the administrator login to delete the current login your using that is causing the trouble.

To test the Memory there is a program that is free called Memtest86 just google it.