My sister's computer shuts off oafter about 3 seconds

[Juancho19]

Hi guys,
I recently brought my sister's computer home to do some upgrades. The computer worked fine over her house. When I tried to boot the computer up at my house, it shuts off about about 3 seconds. It is a HP Pavilion a 475c. I have never experienced something like this before. Thanks!

[Suspishio]

Something came loose bouncing up and down in the car?

[jbennet]

Sounds like overheating. Maybe the heatsink or fan came off

[joshua.tilson]

I agree, it sounds like a overheating issue.
I recently built a new computer from components, and my CPU fan was not attached correctly, this caused the dual core processor to over heat at a record pace: 3-5 seconds, and then the computer would automatically shut down.
open the case and make sure all the fans are running, the heat sinks are places properly , and get the dust bunnies out of there while your at it!

Good Luck

[Juancho19]

Yes, but the thing is that after doing it for a while, the computer boots up. Isn't that odd?

[joshua.tilson]

Yes, but the thing is that after doing it for a while, the computer boots up. Isn't that odd?

It sounds then like a defective piece of hardware. I have seen similar situations caused as well by faulty components, Power Supplies, RAM modules etc. There is no easy way (as far as I know) to trouble shoot what is faulty and causing the faiure, But a couple of ideas are: Change out the power supply and any other hardware you can, one at a time, and test to see if you still have the same issue.

Another thing you can try is: Memtest86 Runs tests on your RAM modules to see if they are defective in any way.

my other thought:. Do you get an irregular POST beep?

Once again good luck!