Help: PC powers down.. kinda

I have a strange intermitent problem. My pc will suddenly power down for o
apparent reason. I don't know if this is a software glitch or a hardware
deal. Here's the deal:

I have a home built PC that I've been using for two years without problems.
I'm running windows XP, with all the updates.
I have a soyo mother board with an AMD duron 1.2 ghrz processor

I'll be using the computer and suddenly it will just kinda shut off. I say
"kinda" because the power light on the tower stays on, but the fans, hard
drives, and monitor go silent. If I hold the power button down, it will
finally go off completely, at which time I can then re-start the computer.
This does not appear to be a sleep mode because nothing wakes the computer
up. If I completely cut the power, likewise I'll be able to restart and it
will re-boot.

My windows power settings have been checked, and they are not set to shut
anything off or down. Likewise, none of the BIOS power settings are set to
shut anything down. Besides, this doesn't happen regularily, it will
happen once in the morning for instance, and then the machine will stay on
all day for the rest of the day after being restarted. On the other hand,
some days, she shuts down quite frequently. Shuts down whether or not I'm
using it at the time.

Nothing shows up in the windows event logs to indicate what might be
causing this either.

I'm stumped.

Paul.

Power supply. Sounds like a bad electrolytic capacitor
shorting out. When cold, they don't like to charge up
either.

johns

"johns" wrote in news:d00r2a$rbu$1
@news.fsr.net:

Power supply. Sounds like a bad electrolytic capacitor
shorting out. When cold, they don't like to charge up
either.

johns




Thanks Johns. I wonder though, why do think it's a power supply issue
instead of a cpu over heating issue? As a diagnostic measure I downloaded
a free program that monitors my CPU temp, and speeds up the fan to keep it
cool. That's what the program claims at any rate. Thing is, since I
installed the program, the CPU doesn't get any hotter than 106F. It would
sometime read 114 when I re-booted it before. And, the computer hasn't
shut down once since I installed this program. I don't know if this is a
coincidence, or if I'm actually on to something here. What do you think?

TIA

Paul.