[Smelly]

lately my computer has been shorting out. all of the sudden the computer makes a noise like "zzzttt!", screen goes black, and computer starts to reboot. it is plugged into a surge protector, but that's about as far as my computer knowledge takes me. any ideas? any other info you need to know?

 

[ZEDMAN]

wel honestly thats a hard one to call without looking into the case and what not. my guess is its PROBABLY NOT the system but either like a loose cable or a cable touching another cable, or a part of your computer could have short circuited. also dust in the case could have something to do with it. again hard to say without looking in the computer. take it to compusa or where ever you got it if you arent ready to go opening up the computer.

 

[Dirty]

maybe i can throw in a question too if people are gonna be looking here...

my computers been crashing when playing videos or music through almost any program. just freezes and forces me to reboot. especially a problem when trying to skip ahead in a track.

 

[Smelly]

my housemate built it up for me, but he's out of town for a few days, otherwise i'd make him fix it. all cables are snug, just cleaned out the inside with a wet rag and some WD40....



















kidding.... just sprayed it out with one of those air spraying thingys for cleaning out keyboards. that's ok, right?
if this didn't stop it, i'll just make my roomate take care of it in a few days.

 

[DHS]

um, those spays sometime cause the electric static, people at my work use to use them, and they screwed up the computers. so i'd had to agree with zedman, something on the inside isn't plugged all the way in or something

dirty, have you defrag at all. but then theres, the ?'s of what your computer is, ram, proc... not enough ram, your harddrive is getting full. ....

 

[mack]

Liquid gases are the best thing to use when cleaning electricals, like butane or if you have any, hydrogen/nitrogen.

 

[clancy98]

could be power supply overheating. If you can open it up and make sure all the fans are spinning. What kind of interval does this happen at? Same amount of time after the system is started?

CLancy

 

[Ciaran]

lately my computer has been shorting out. all of the sudden the computer makes a noise like "zzzttt!", screen goes black, and computer starts to reboot. it is plugged into a surge protector, but that's about as far as my computer knowledge takes me. any ideas? any other info you need to know?

Could be a bad power supply.

 

[manziman]

Buy a Mac and you won't have any of these mass marketed problems.

 

[Austin Bike]

unplug the damn thing, haul it to another electrical outlet on a different circuit (i.e. other side of the house) and try it there before hauling it out for repair.

Sound like you could have a power problem.

 

[Denny]

Make sure your extra power-supply plugs are tied up. Sometimes the exposed pins on a graphics card or something else can make contact with an unused HD power plug, the results usually aren't very pretty. Check for scorching

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Buy a Mac and you won't have any of these mass marketed problems.

Instead you will experience small market segment twice as expensive problems.

 

[syadasti]

Instead you will experience small market segment twice as expensive problems.

Yes Macs are made by the same vendors that make PC parts(and will have the same problems), only in much smaller quantities:

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050114A7040.html

 

[Smelly]

thanks for all the ideas. i'll try 'em out and see if it stops.