PC shuts down after a few seconds

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Here is the situation, about 2 weeks ago one of my computers stopped in the middle of a game and shut down. That was it. I restarted the computer and it powered up and went into the normal startup sequence, it did hit the BIOS screen, then powered down unexpectedly. After that it could be turned on, but then immediately shut down, staying on no longer than about 4 seconds. The system worked flawlessly for about 2 years before this problem.

System Specs: AMD 2000 on an ECS K7S5A mb with appropriate RAM and a 300 W psu.

I searched the net, found out it could/most likely was, a power supply problem. I bought a new power supply (a 320 psu), swapped it out and nothing changed. I have a couple other computers with similar configurations so I swapped out components looking for the 'defective' part. The CPU/RAM were easy enough, but did nothing, finally I tried a new motherboard (ASUS A7N8X-X), again nothing. I eventually swapped everything out into a new case, using the same RAM/CPU/Video card. (Please note: I have not had the hard drive plugged in since early in this debugging period, as I cannot get to the BIOS, I did not figure having the HD plugged in would help in any way.)

I still figured the RAM/CPU must be bad so I put in spares, and I put in an old PCI video card just for good measure too. It still powered down before hitting the BIOS. What the heck? There was not one original piece of hardware in the box and I had the same problem. Then I made a terrible mistake. I took the original RAM/CPU and plugged them into a machine I knew to be working (on an ASUS A7N8X board). Guess what? Now that computer exibits the same behaviour, it simply will not boot up. It shuts down after a mere 2-3 seconds. The fans start, the leds go on, then it shuts off.

I have tried clearing the CMOS on both systems to no avail.

I am getting paranoid about some sort of a RAM virus and that I inadvertently infected a 'good' computer with it by mistake.

Does any of this sound remotely like something anyone else has ever heard of?

 

 

 

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I lost two good laptops that way back in 1997 due to BIOS virus that was going around that year. And during my reading, I would have quickly replied with, “yes, it’s your BIOS problem.” However, when you mentioned that you placed your original, thought to be faulty, CPU into your working computer and the same symptom exhibited, it got me wondering if a virus can exist within CPU’s cache?

So, tracking from your steps you took, I believe there’s something wrong with your original CPU. And this CPU is probably causing some kind of short circuit that causes motherboard to “fry.” My reasoning is that you changed out to a new motherboard but used your old CPU. And you used that same CPU on a working system as well. Ergo, both of your systems are inoperative.

Further question I have for your is any sign(s) or error beep(s)? When you start your machine without at least having a CPU, RAM and video card you will hear error beeps in codes (this will also denote that a part is defective).

Hopefully someone from this forum would see this thread and come up with a right answer.

Cheers.

 

 

 

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No such thing as a RAM virus. Once you power off your system nothing resides in RAM so a virus cannot infect the RAM, the closest thing to a RAM virus would be a virus that loads in a TSR (terminally stay resident) program.

You seem to have eliminated a good number of problems, but I have to ask, have you eliminated the power source (not supply) as your problem. Is it possible that the PC's are plugged into a bad outlet? I know it seems like such a silly thing, but I have seen it before where an unreliable outlet would power up for a few seconds then shut down the second the PC tried to draw any more power. Try plugging into a different outlet, using a different power bar or UPS. If your power outlet is off it may also be frying your powersupplies, and that could be why the comptuer you knew was working is now exhibiting similar symptoms.

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What you have is: Blaster.worm/Lovesan.worm

Search for: Blaster.worm/Lovesan.worm removal Tools
They are made by Microsoft and Symantecm should be free. I got the oficial 'free' CD here.

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Hi
While it's entirely possible you could have a virus or worm that causes a shutdown .. It's unlikely that it could be affecting BOTH computers .. UNLESS you previously had them on the same network with "file sharing" enabled OR transfered files via the internet between the two computers.
If you did'nt.. then.. practically the only cause left is the CPU/RAM which you transfered between the two puters..most likely the CPU.

Get a linux boot up & troubleshooting CD to test the CPU.. if it has any functioning circuits left on it at all. If it doesn't.. then you'll get the same shutdown result when you try to boot up with the CD.
Hope this helps
RGPHNX

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A few moths ago I had the same problem. I try the same solutions but nothing.

At last I found the problem

My AGP port crasshes with my graphic card because the speed of my AGP was slower than the speed of my card.

I try to set up my card with a slower speed like 4x and the problem was gone

I hope this case will be useful for u.

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Hi there , I guess you should reinstall your O.S to try .

If it doesn't work , try to boot your PC with a brand new Power Supply .

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I am currently having this same problem with two different Motherboards -- an MSI KT4AV with an AMD Duron 1800 processor, and an ABIT KV7 with an AMD Athlon XP 3200+. Both systems have AGP video cards based on vastly differing generations (one geforce 6600GT, one geforce 2 mx400) Both Computers run fine in Windows 2000 until I play America's Army for a while -- the time can vary. The shutdown is sudden and without warning -- then the speaker beeps an alternating High/Low tone like a European police siren. I can't reboot them immediately, but I only have to wait about 30 seconds before they will boot successfully. If I immediately check the CPU temp with the BIOS, it is 40-49 deg. C. -- so it seems unlikely that this is a temperature problem, unless the CPU's are reliably failing well below their rated max temps. I have had the problem on one of the systems where I couldn't even boot to windows - just like this other fellow, but I seem to have solved that by clearing CMOS memory -- that was on the MSI KT4AV.

My experiments (planned out, not haphazard by the way) have ruled out power supplies, CPU chips, video cards, wall power supply, memory, motherboards, temperature, and phase of the moon. By the way, both of these systems will run for days with no problem if I stay away from games.

I've researched this extensively on the net, and generally people have no idea what this is caused by. I have almost 30 years of experience with microprocessors (starting in 1976 with an Altair 8800), and I haven't seen this before -- now I've got it on two systems -- how unlikely is that if it's a hardware problem? I've only found three people on the net that spoke about this with any confidence: two mentioned a virus, and the other mentioned AGP speed. Because of everything I just mentioned, I am now virtually certain that this is caused by a virus. Let me explain:

If you dismount the heatsink from an AMD Athlon or Duron Socket A processor and turn on the system, it will immediately fail with this behavior (tried it!) -- so this is a legitimate CPU failure alarm.

Thus, many of the reports of this failure are probably just that -- CPU Failure. But that doesn't explain those of us who have sudden outbreaks of this problem on multiple systems.

I can also stop this problem by slowing the processor down to about half its rated speed.

With those facts in mind, imagine some semi-intelligent sociopath figures out that you can give an AMD CPU a certain series of instructions that confuse it enough that motherboards with AMI bioses think that it has failed -- or that actually cause the processor to fail suddenly, but not permanently. Then let's say that maybe this only works when the CPU is already stressed out by, say, a CPU intensive game program (that would explain why it isn't effective at half clock speed).

I have no explanation for the systems that simply won't boot, and transfer the infection without the disk drive attached. That's one for the AMD people to tackle.

As for me, I'm going to to looking for fixes to the Blaster/Lovesan worms, because I have nothing better to do -- my system crashes if I play games!

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I just encountered the same problems as yours, this was sometimes occured unexpectedly.

This may happen if one of you devices are mulfunctioning, like hardisk failure, memory, video, board of sometimes overheating the cpu that force the computer to reboot. try to diagnose your computer for immenent computer breakdown, since you are using amd maybe is the heat that force your pc to reboot.

I have the same problem before, when i try to checked everything attached to my computer I found out that my hardisk is having bad sector and sometimes failed to read the files... if you are in the middle of the game and having this problem, the computer restart in order to prevent big damaged to your pc, especially if you are using windows xp.

Part of security and protection provided by the microsoft it is common, this will happen just to remind you of possible hardware trouble...

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YES, it may be the hardware or some parts of your computer that forced you pc to reboot... If I remember when Microsoft release the new windows XP professional, they say that this OS increases the security that old windows OS don't have and one of them are the automatic shutdown or reboot once the computer detected a hardware failure in your computer.

To prevent large damage mostly to your file system windows reboot your pc and try to reload all the system files needed by windows to run properly.

Some hardwares that forced the PC to reboot when having trouble are as follows:

1. Memory - If one or more of your memory installed into your computer is not function or mul-functioning the computer will reboot and tried to refresh and check the memory.
2. Hardisk - This usually occured if you are using old hard drive or hard drive with damaged. if the windows detected damaged from your harddrive it will also reboot the computer to prevent corruptions of system files. this will also scan your hard drive once the computer restarted.
3. PRocessors - Usually AMD as this problem, amd need to maintain certain heat in order to run faster and better. if the heat exceeded, it will reboot your pc alos. Usually AMD DURON and Althon has the problem before, I don't don't if they considered this as part security or a bugs.

Motherboarth and process sometimes also the reason why your computer is restarted.

As I said this is still part of security measures to prevent more damaged in your PC.

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