Computer shutting down out of nowhere

[BipolarBill]

Excuse me if I seem a bit tempermental.

We constantly preach here about backing up your hard drive. Do you follow that advice and use a copy of Ghost or True Image?

All you have to do is to clone your old hard drive to the new one. The easiest way is to use your current backup software to do that. You can also use the drive maker's utility (Seatools, Data Lifeguard Tools, etc.) or a freeware app like Clone Maxx or Drive Image XML.

If you don't have a drive imaging backup application, here's a free one.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/

[dragflameson]

No, I've never backed up my hard drive.

I downloaded that software you linked me to, thanks. I'll try it with the new drive when it gets here!

[dragflameson]

Hi everyone,

I've had the new hard drive installed for 4 (almost 5) days now and haven't had an issue yet!



The computer is running much faster now also. I never did make a backup of the drive. Instead, I decided to just start over fresh and re-install everything manually... eliminating all the old "junk" (programs and documents) that were never used anymore. I made a backup of only the documents I wanted to keep and put those on a DVD and just copied them over to the new install once it was all done.

BP - Thanks especially to you for your original post on this thread. I was about to go out and get a new power supply, but luckily you posted that message in time and saved me some time and money. I appreciate that.

[BipolarBill]

Awesome!

Yes - it's a good idea to disable automatic restarts on all new installations. I do it routinely. Remember that restarts are software crashes and shutdowns are hardware.

[snow-ice-mn]

I have a friend that is having similar problems with her computer. She tells me it shuts down while running. I believe it's trying to restart because she says it will start beeping at her after is shuts down. I gave her directions for scanning the HDD but she can't figure it out, I'll walk her through it over the phone. She didn't get a BSOD tho. I did chkdsk on my computer so I could better guide her and mine wanted to scan on restart. The scan completed wi th no problems, but I can't find the log in the event viewer. Would a bad PSU cause the beep codes? I couldn't find any list of post/beep codes calling out the PSU. Thanks in advance for the help.

[BipolarBill]

If the PC is shutting down and beeping at her, it's most likely a hardware problem - high temperatures (poor cooling), bad power supply or bad capacitors on either the motherboard or video card.

I would start with the basics. Have her open the PC and do a check for dust accumulation and fan function. The CPU fan and video card fan (if present) should be checked.