Windows Boot Problem

Okay... got a new computer from an auction. Randomly, for no apparent reason, it will turn itself off after roughly ten minutes unless I'm running a music player. Don't know why, but as long as I'm running WMP or something similar, the computer will stay on.

Also, when it shuts down like that, when I reboot, it will get to the windows boot screen before flashing blue really fast before rebooting again. And every time I start it up, it says,  'primary harddrive not found, press F1 to boot from secondary harddrive', or something like that. I had to replace the HD because the original was bad. That screen comes up before the windows boot, and then the blue.

Anyone got any ideas?

Maybe that was why he auctioned it.

It was a school aution (college), and there were a shitload of them... there was nothing wrong with the batch, they were just no longer up to the standards of the school (3+ years old... P3s, etc)

reformat

I'd suggest the hard disk is dying. If you're using a music player it's accessing the hard disk, but if you're not the computer's power saving may be putting the hard disk into sleep mode (inactivity), but can't then wake it up again.

in before linux, opera, etc.

www.opera.com

The only problem with the suggestion of the HD dying is that it's new... I bought it about two weeks ago and installed it (250 gigs) because the original HD wasn't even registering with the computer. It was bringing up a 'Primary Hard Drive not fount/Secondary Hard drive not found', so it's at least recognizing and allowing the one I have to boot... it just seems really random about when it decides to restart or not.

I keep thinking I should bring it in to Geek Squad, but after they fucking lost my laptop for two weeks after sending it out, only to have sent it to another customer, I don't really trust them.

I'm mostly concerned about the rebooting situation, and the bluescreen I get before it does. And before you ask, I can't read what it says on the bluescreen... it only flashes for a second or two, but it says something about a certain protocol (insert many numbers) not being met. :S

>>8
I am going to stop trolling for a few minutes. This only happens like once a week so listen up

You can really have some good times with your computer. You seriously should learn to fix it yourself. Nobody cares about how it runs but you. If you take it to some jackhole and tell him to fix it, it's not going to get done right. Even if you have a father/brother/boyfriend/whatever that you LIVE with who is a Lunix tard and fixes computers for a living, he can't fix it like you can. Even if you're mediocre at best dealing with hardware. Only you use it enough to make a true diagnosis of your computer's health.

Start troubleshooting. Rule everything you can out, then make an educated guess about the source. You know where all the components came from (or have at least a good guess). You know that hard disk failure is probably not the culprit because it's new. Did you install Windows from scratch on it, or did you use some utility to move it from your old disk (like MaxBlast/dd/etc.)? Can you consistantly get your disk to register in the BIOS? Can you make it consistantly fail? If either is true, you found the cause. Try replacing the IDE cable. If that fixes it, you found the cause. Try removing one stick of RAM and see if the problem happens still. If so, take it out and try the other. If still, try one stick in the other DDR channel or another slot. If that still doesn't fix it, you ruled out a RAM error too. Remove all PCI cards but the graphics. Remove all other disk drives. If this doesn't fix it, you've ruled out the possibility of a power drought (not enough power from the power supply causes brownouts that show this kind of behaviour).

Try anything else reasonable you can think of. If all else fails, you have a bad IDE channel on the motherboard. In that case, you need a new motherboard.