I recently had some problems with my computer so I started to figure out some things that might be causing it. Done everything and found out (hah, i found out) that it was the motherboard. So I went and bought an "Abit VA-20" motherboard, I'm guessing it would also be called a mirco atx motherboard.

I took my computer to my sister's boyfriends house and he put the hardware all together for me, this including installing the CPU and getting everything back up and running. He also lended me a copy of WinXP Professional Edition. Okay, so I took my computer back home to have some fun... All fine and dandy or about 1 to 1 1/2 months.

Well last night I was talking to some buddies on messenger and all of a sudden, poof, computer shuts off no warning nothing. Didn't even goto the windows logging off screen where it says like "Saving your settings...." ect. Just a complete powerdown as if I unplugged it. Now I'm freaking out because pretty much the same thing was happening before. So I turned the computer back on and about 20 minutes later, it done the same thing except this time is went to the logging off screen.

Now everytime I turn it on it turns off at different times, sometimes running nearly 2-3 hours, sometimes 1hr, sometimes 5 mins...and better yet sometimes long enough to see my desktop. I thought it might be overheating so I placed room fan on it (box-fan). Still had the same problem. So i'm guessing its not overheating. So i take out ALL MY PCI cards and my video card which is AGP, and plugged my monitor into the motherboards default video slot.

I kept the mouse and keyboard in just incase one of the PCI or my video card was the problem and my computer decided to stay on. Well I STILL HAVE THE PROBLEM So now I think it was the memory, since I only have 2 memory sticks, and both of them are in the computer i decided to try 1 out at a time. Same problem so either both my sticks of ram are bad or there is seriously something wrong. Soo again I go searching the internet for another possible solution. I found that someone was having a problem because of the power outlet that there computer was plugged into. So i took just my tower, nothing else and plugged it in one of the outlets in my dining room. This time i unplugged the mouse and keyboard, so there is NOTHING connected to my computer, all it would be left is a noisy boring box with weird looking hardware inside of it. I plug it in turn it on and what do you know probably 1 minute or so after i turn it on it shutdown, even with NOTHING plugged in.

I'm completely lost on what to do know. Is it possibly my power source? The green light is on in the back. I heard that if it was the hard drive i would most likely hear clicking or buzzing noises before it shut off. And if the RAM wasn't able to work with my computer wouldnt my computer make beeping noises or give errors?

---- specs ----
AMD Athlon 2400+ 1.99 Ghz Processor (i'm pretty sure its 2400)
WinXP Professional Edition (SP2)
640MB RAM (512MB + 128MB)

I'm currently on a 7-9 year old Dell that has never gave me any problems. That's the bad thing about all this:o I'm 15 years old so any help will be greatly appriciated. P.S. same thing happens in safe mode (so it probably isn't software related ???)

Wow u done a lot of experiments, cool. Well u haven't tried checking ur registry, maybe it starts from there.

I'm not the best with editing the registry but I can sum-what navigate it, so what should I look for? I've been using System Mechanic 6 Pro to defrag my registry and compact it and stuff, maybe it has something to do with it? What's the best solution?


-- edit / P.S. --
Don't when you change the registry it automatically changes? So if it was my registry and it got changed where its making me shutdown wouldn't it have done it at the right moment? I mean I was talking in Yahoo! Messenger, I seriously don't think it changed my registry to do this... For example: If it was System Mech. 6 that done it, wouldn't my computer started messing up right as I closed System Mechanic, not an hour later.

Welcome to PCHF twister160,
I am running an AMD 2400+ and had a similar problem, try downloading this http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php , click on "speedfan 4.27" install the app and let us know what temperature it runs at when under load. If the temperature for the cpu is above about 55 degrees centigrade (mine was sitting at 60-68)check that your heatsink and cpu have the correct amount of thermal paste ( a thin layer, not too much) and are seated properly.
Hope this helps

I had a huge room fan on it that you use to cool your house off with. I checked in BIOS and it was around 35-40 when I was shutting off. My BIOS is set not to shutdown until 65C'

I'll go ahead and check that program out though. I had my sisters boyfriend install the CPU to this new motherboard, he knows what he's doing that's why I let him do it... But I guess sometimes everyone may make mistakes? I'll try to check connections around the CPU to the motherboard and make sure all is good.