HELP ! SEVERE PC PROBLEM...mystery crashing, cna't figure it out after 3 weeks !

Hi

can anyone help as I am going nuts !
for three weeks I haven't been able to figure what's causing my pc to crash and as

was writing this and posting this thread, the dam thing crashed again so had to

start again !ARGHHH !

My CPU and memory were tested to their limits by a program and the computer didn't

crash so i don't think there's a problem with the CPU or RAM, but you never know

as the motherboard could be faulty ! Seems like the system shorts out or something

but have cleaned the inside of the machine and well, I am at the end of my

patience, and haven't been able to do anything with my pc p[roperly for 3 weeks !

I can't solve why my machine has intermittently been crashing.

I can't figure if my USB 2.0 drivers or service pack 1 from Windows XP etc is

causing it to crash.

It can stay on for hours or literally 30 seconds and then crash.

Sometimes on booting up it crashes, and then does it a few times more ina row

before staying on for abit !!!

When it crashes, the speakers sometimes make this horrid squeaking electronic

noise and then the whole machine seems to lose power.
It's like something just causes the machine to lose power, and 'blow out' and

remain off, except for the green light on the front of my pc case !

To then restart my pc when this happens, I have to press the power button and hold

it still for 5 seconds till the green light goes out, then wait 10 seconds before

pressing the power on button again where it then boots up and the red light and

green come on together as Windows boots in!

please help me !

even writing this is like russian roulette as many times the machine crashes

whilst working and just before saving !

could it be a faulty power lead or power suppy or RAM chip or what !!?
It all happened after installing a faulty external hard drive which caused my

machine to freeze and crash, and after checking if my machine had the right

drivers and trying different USB2.0 drivers, and getting many blue screens of

death, I sent the external drive back,and got a new one.

Reinstalled the machine incase it was the drivers, and then applied the correct

USB 2.0 drivers, and then the machine still keeps crashing but without any blue

screen of death and even anti-crash can't stop it crashing of what appears to be
power loss crashes ! who knows, but maybe SP1 USB 2.0 drivers are rubbish, or it's

the USB 2.0 card I installed which is conflicting or causing trouble, but I doubt

it as I took it out and uninstalled it, and the system still crashed !

can anyone help !!!? could it be a faulty sound card or graphics card !!!!

kind regards

stef

[caperjack]

it could be caused by anyone of the things you mention in you post ,start by removing any addin cards ,if you have 2 sticks of ram remove one then the other ect ect ,it could be a bad power supply shorting out ,it could be anything .sounds a bit like power or heat !

[Dortz]

It's not a 'bad' power supply. otherwise the green power light would kick off. The two most probable things here:

not enough power from the power supply: this happened to me. I added piece after piece, and then all of a sudden, bam. started dying. I upgraded to a more powerful psu and that solved my problem.

bad/faulty (X): this is basically a trial and error type thing. strip the components to thier bare minimum, and see if the issue happens. then swap out and add as you go.

bad motherboard: i really doubt it. but, go into your motherboard logs for any events that it has. if power cut off to the motherboard, the log will have the even recorded.

[caperjack]

It's not a 'bad' power supply. otherwise the green power light would kick off.

A bad power supply can turn on a computer ,run all fans and lights ,but not go past the boot screen

[SnowDog]

I agree. It can also keep on frying new mobos.

[caperjack]

type this, eventvwr.msc , into RUN and check for errors