PC won't start.. any suggestions?

[ChasG]

My computer is left on 24/7 and when I came down this morning it was turned off.

When I fired it up all seemed well until I opened Firefox and it turned itself off again whether starting Firefox or other programmes

I have repeated the exercise several times since with the same effect except once.

On the occaision it went into some "Safe repair Mode" then said it could not repair it with a series of errors oXo.

Does anyone have any suggestions before it goes off to repair people?

 

[Fodrigal]

just turning off sounds like overheating to me

maybe open up and see if the CPU fans are spinning?

 

[johnnypanic]

Open it up. Even without turning it on, there should be a light turned on, on the motherboard (make sure turned on at wall plug and rear of pc). Give pc a good vacuum, especially around the fans (cpu and external), but be careful.

Try to start. If same issue occurs, rebed cards and ram and ultimately cpu (but leave this last), so see if this solves problem.

If problem continues, disconnect hard drive cable, to start up without any drives attached. If this works, you may well have to reformat hd or purchase a new one (if the drive is damaged rather than just files corrupted).

Oh and good luck

 

[ChasG]

Thanks guys and/or gals I will try that. May be full of crap as I have a hairy dog

 

[ChasG]

I am pleased to say that after shoveling out the crud it now seems to be functioning.
Many thanks

 

[chelleon]

Good to hear!

It's a common problem that very few people are aware of.

Reminds me, my sons gaming beast is due for an overhaul!!!

 

[Peter69]

When I took my first laptop apart I carefully removed the felt filter they had fitted over the fan's exhaust.
Luckily it fell apart before I had chance to put it back.

 

[afasoas]

The other common cause in this type of scenario is PSU failure.

A lot of boards will have an LED light flashing when the PSU has failed as one of the lines is over or under-volting.
The other manifestation I've seen quite often is the PSU cutting out under any kind of load - the PC will usually boot up fine but running a stress test causes a reboot.
Finally, less often, I've seen random rebooting.

I've replaced about 9 PSUs in the last twelve months.