Hi guys and gals . hope someone can help with some advice. l have a puter that is acting funny , sometimes it starts up and sit with a black screen and sometimes it works for a few minutes then shuts down. l think it may have gotten a virus. l ran zonealarm and did not seem to fix the problem. Any ideas?
l am thinking of re formatting the drive but l need some step by step instructions . so if anyone have the time , l would really appreciate it.Thanks in advance , you can email me with response or post for all to see. :twitcy:

Hi guys and gals . hope someone can help with some advice. l have a puter that is acting funny , sometimes it starts up and sit with a black screen and sometimes it works for a few minutes then shuts down. l think it may have gotten a virus. l ran zonealarm and did not seem to fix the problem. Any ideas?
l am thinking of re formatting the drive but l need some step by step instructions . so if anyone have the time , l would really appreciate it.Thanks in advance , you can email me with response or post for all to see. :twitcy:

First and foremost what operating sys do u have m8? Do you hear one beep on bootup or more than one? Also what kind of puter do ya got and lastly how long has it been since the last format was performed on yer puter? As well a good antivirus prgram will be needed for the future and there are quite a few for FREE on the net such as AVG free and so on.BTW like yer avatar ..... hehe.

Hi guys and gals . hope someone can help with some advice. l have a puter that is acting funny , sometimes it starts up and sit with a black screen and sometimes it works for a few minutes then shuts down. l think it may have gotten a virus. l ran zonealarm and did not seem to fix the problem. Any ideas?
l am thinking of re formatting the drive but l need some step by step instructions . so if anyone have the time , l would really appreciate it.Thanks in advance , you can email me with response or post for all to see. :twitcy:
Here's a step by step approach. May be of some help..
Don't forget to replace xx with tt.
hxxp://www.whitecanyon.com/format-hard-drive.php

Good Luck!

Do you get an error message when shutting down. It could be a Sasser Worm. If it is a Sasser Worm, look at this. http://www.ftatalk.com/showthread.php?t=148501

Thanks for replies guys, l think its a clone about 2 yrs old , l dont have all the specs on it but the os is windows xp pro , it starts up with one beep an loads programs but sometimes it shuts down on its own with no error messages , l think maybe if l reformat the drive and start all over again it will be fine. lt has never been formatted since we got the puter. A 13 yr old kid uses it for msn and some games like counterstrike and steam among other similar games so l am not surprised he may have gotten some sort of virus while downloading stuff. :angel:

How can you be sure it is not hardware? True about MSN and chances of getting infected but what about the board, power supply and the vid card?

If you can, tell us about your system so we can help you better.

CPU
Video card
Power Supply (Make and model or spec from the sticker)
Motherboard.
How many hard drives
How many optical drives
How many fans
How many memory modules and their spec

As much info as you can.

Over heating, failed or failing hardware (power supply, mobo, capacitors) video card asking for more juice than the power supply can offer are just a few reasons above software and corrupt files or drivers issues.

Most Viruses, worms and trojans, would want your system up so they can replicate themselves, why would they want to shut you down? must be a poorly written virus!

I was having same problem with my (OLD) system. Needed new mother board.

Remove all dust inside your computer. Reseat all your cards, memory and connectors. If you can remove and reseat your cpu much better. It looks like one of your hard drive is going bad. You need to back-up all your files.

If it was me I would download a liveCD version of LInux perhaps ubuntu or kubuntu.
Then boot from the CD. The cd will allow you to check if ram is ok, etc. Also if the linux dist runs fine then you can probably rule out the issue being a hardware related one. You can use fdisk to remove and recreate your partitions etc, then reinstall your windows (if you really want to run that crap :) ). Or you could just keep the linux and install that.

you can download the Kubuntu dist from here (1 of many places to get it ):

hxxp://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/ubuntu-releases/kubuntu/gutsy/kubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso

Anyway, as I said that is what I would do maybe it helps you and maybe not. Better to have more options than less.

Good Luck

Tronics

Clean everything, specially the CPU heatsink...

open up case and look around the prossesor. there you will find some cylinders, they are capacitors. look for bulge on top of capacitor or any sign of leakage. this go bad after a while and will give you black screen and startup problems. PC will run for 3 hours some days and turn of or go black and sometime it will not go on at all.

cocoino is correct. caps are the victim, I have a system hear with bad caps and thats my problem. i've seen this happen too many times. there replaceable if you can solder or know a tech that can. I do 'em myself......

Hi guys and gals . hope someone can help with some advice. l have a puter that is acting funny , sometimes it starts up and sit with a black screen and sometimes it works for a few minutes then shuts down. l think it may have gotten a virus. l ran zonealarm and did not seem to fix the problem. Any ideas?
l am thinking of re formatting the drive but l need some step by step instructions . so if anyone have the time , l would really appreciate it.Thanks in advance , you can email me with response or post for all to see. :twitcy:


reformat.prob solved. as for instructions,tis simple my friend.if you own a copy of windows.....

First of all I would do a good clean up.
Dust is a killer and from your symptoms that would be my first thing to try.
Second would be your PSU, get another one and try it out.
Good Luck

l think the puter finally died..... my son (13) took it apart and wanted to see the amd processor and he couldnt put it back in , now it wont even power up.

Well,, know your really sh*t out off luck.
If you do get the system up and running.. Go to bootdisk.com
There are many bootdisks and utilities that can correct your problem..
Good luck

l think the puter finally died..... my son (13) took it apart and wanted to see the amd processor and he couldnt put it back in , now it wont even power up.


Well I think this ones closed,:violin:

Like other said ..listen for beep ............. Your fan on CPUmaybe dirty or full of c.r..p
The power supply maybe need to be replace.
CPU maybe dying cause " over heating "fan problem"
The motherboad itself sometime will have a tiny crac or should I say soldering
is getting loose when hot.
I will tell you this " IT IS HOT IN A COMPUTER " :violin:
Oh forgot something... tell me what your BIOS setup is set to.
WOW so much info I would need. :laugh: