Dying system?

I have an HP Pavilion 6636 with Celeron processor, about 2.5 yrs old, 512 meg RAM, and XP Pro OS installed about 1 month ago. Hard drive is 12 Gig. I got it for a song as a refurbished from HP.
No problems prior to this, but suddenly in past week, system has suddenly shut down while sitting unattended or while I was just doing something on the machine. I am not a multitasker, so usually only have one app running. No games, graphics or heavy duty stuff.
I have a Belkin SurgeMaster II, but even tho I am out in the boonies, I'm not aware that we have unusual power blips, etc. Weather is cold, but not stormy and we have had no power outages.
Is this a sign of impending death (of the computer?). Is it the sign of impending failure of either power supply or Hard Disk? I could easily replace either, but this machine owes me nothing and with the price of new systems, it's not worth putting much into this one. Thoughts?

 

Hi shawdaifu

Could be a number of things. Lets start with the easy ones. Run all of your cleaners... spyware, temp files, registry. If software app. related, any drivers installed or undated during the past month? Hardware... HEAT... Generally displays itself AFTER system has been running for a period of time. Check all the fans. Should be one or more on mobo, powersupply fan and/or thru the wall types. Be aware, sometimes fans fail a slow death. They can run at power up today, not tommorrow. While your at it..... clean and blow out any dust from inside the box. ALSO... check, reseat cards... including memory sticks.... which could also be failing. Last install / run ADIA32 , a excellent system information tool. Can provide tempertures, fan speeds dependent on mobo and sensors available. After doing ALL of the above and nothing jumps out at you do another heat test. Remove the panels, set up a fan and move air over/thru the box. If it stops rebooting, and all the fans are working, my guess memory stick. Post back with your results.

 

Could be a fatal exception of some kind. By default XP reboots when one occurs. To eliminate the possibility, right click on my computer and on the advanced tab click on the settings button under startup and recovery. Under system failure uncheck the line that says automatically restart. If it is an error of some kind causing it you should get a blue screen (remember win9x ?) instead of it rebooting.

 

Thanks for help. I haven't had a chance to go thru any of the troubleshooting recommended, but to clarify the issue further, the system is NOT rebooting. It turns off completely and I have to restart it. Also, on a couple of occasions, it did not restart when I tried to reboot, but after 10 min or more, it did restart. Does that sound like a heating problem?

 

Hi shawdaifu

It is giving that appearance. Take off the side panel, turn computer on and check them fans. When my power supply failed, it acted the same way.... problem was, fan was intermittent. Since 1993, four computers required 2 power supply replacements, plus 1 fan replacement for power supply and 1 memory chip. Never had a problem with fans on the mobo.

 

Sorry to be tardy in reporting back. I do have a day job.
Well, it gets curiouser and curiouser. I opened up the critter, reseated everything I could and unhooked all the external connections and plugged them back in. The spontaneous turning off stopped, but then I suddenly got a "found new hardware" message. It was referring to a 56K modem which was actually factory installed. Windows didn't have the drivers and I couldn't find any. But now, instead of turning off without my wanting it, the computer started rebooting on shut down and I essentially could not turn it off, except manually with the computer switch. I disabled the "automatic restart" (thanks zander) and yes indeed there is a blue screen. It says that my problem is "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ". I guess that's some sort of IRQ conflict, but since there were no new hardware additions, what happened? More important, can I do anything about it? The machine seems to work OK in every other sense. Oh yes, I just took out the modem since I don't use it. I have cable modem via ethernet.

 

Oh I saw In another post that the cryptic numbers on these screens are very important. So here's the full scoop.
The error is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

STOP:0X0000000A(0X600002D4,0X000000FF,0X00000000,0X804ECBC1)

Can anyone out there shed some light on this? Thanks. The 'puter seems to be working fine in all respects, but it doesn't want to shut down.

 

I can't find an exact match so the best I can suggest is the Microsoft Online help section, advanced and look for all microsoft products and "all the words entered" then use IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL 0x0000000A for your search terms.

The first two articles are generic troubleshooting for this error for 2K & XP.

If no luck there, change the search terms to IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL 0x0A and try it again. A few more articles with that one. And as a last attempt, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL 0xA.

 

OK. Here's the follow up. The best guess in tracking down the stop error was a driver misfit. I also found out that a "helper" relative had "cleaned up" my computer without my knowledge or permission which was how my driver(s) got ******* up. I messed around trying to find out specifically which one, but finally gave up and reinstalled over the present one. Now everything's ok again although I still have to put in a compatible drivers for my CD R/W and a Wacom tablet. Altho it's a bit of a drag, I now use a password and my relative is banned from my office. Thanks to all. I learned a lot from you--as usual. BTW I tried to boot up in safe mode to get at the driver business, but F8 doesn't do it. I read in one of the postings that someone else had to use a different key to get into safe mode. Does anyone out there recall which one it was? Thanks also for not reminding me that a lot of the BSOD errors are in--surprise--the documentation with the disk! Oh well, if we read the directions, you guys would have nothing to do.