Diagnostic Software

I am having a bunch of issues with my computer booting and staying booted. I don't have spare any RAM, CPU, motherboard, et al to test hardware failures or possible issues. Can someone recommend a piece of software I can boot from a floppy and test for this sort of thing?

Thanks
Whit Green

 

Hello Whit. Can you tell us what Windows version you're running?

Does the computer restart on it's own or does it shutdown? Does it do it when you are using a certain program?

 

It's windows ME. It shuts down and restarts on its own. Sometimes it takes a while to boot into windows. Once its running it usually stays on for a few minutes or the instant I open a program-- any program, then it just dies and i eventually get the POST again. It used to stay running for a few hours and I was able to check for viruses and spyware and that was clean, since I keep on top of those things.

 

Couple things to try:

1) Boot up in Safe Mode:
Restart the computer.
As the computer restarts, press and hold down the F8 key until the Windows startup menu appears.
Choose Safe mode from the startup menu, and then press Enter. Windows starts in Safe mode.

2) Run Scandisk while in safe mode:
Click Start
Click Run and type scandisk in the run box
Click ok
Within the scandisk window select the drive that you wish to be checked.
Choose the option between standard and through. It is recommended you run standard first, if you encounter issues with scandisk then run the through scan.
Finally click start to begin scandisk

 

Thanks for your response. I have the same issues in safe mode. The computer dies and restarts as if it were overheating or not getting enough power.

 

How do you feel about taking the lid off and re-seating any cards, memory, cables etc.?

 

While you have it off, get a can or two of compressed air and blow things out good....fan, cpu, etc. Can you hear the fan(s) running while powered up? Any error messages?

 

With the cover off the case, check the CPU fan is running (it should be spinning at around 4000rpm). There may be temperature readouts in the BIOS settings. Some BIOS's have a setting to shutdown at a certain temperature.

Disconnect some drives (CD and floppy) or remove some PCI cards to reduce the load on your power supply.

Harddrive utilities run from a boot disk (slim chance that it is the HDD though).

You can run Norton Utilities from the CD. Diagnoses the harddrive and Windows files.

I wonder if a reinstall of Windows over itself may be worth a try (corrupt files somewhere).

Matt