Compaq Presario SR1909UK - HELP - COMPUTER SHUTS DOWN!!

[caradais]

Help!

This PC will switch on and then suddenly cut out after about 40 seconds.  Thinking it would be the PSU I went out and bought a replacement, fitted it, and then found that the problem still happened.  After 40 seconds it suddenly cuts out and switches off.

So I now have another option - change the memory chip?  I know what the spec should be but not sure if charging out and spending another £20 will solve the problem.  There doesn't seem to be any other hardware issues, having eliminated the hard drive having a boot sector fault as I disconnected both that and the CD drive before trying to boot up again and still it shut down after about 40 seconds.

(although I was confused about that - I plugged the hard drive into a caddy to read it and check for any viruses and found that on the recovery partition the boot.ini file had "XP Pro" and on the main partition the boot.ini file was "XP Home".)

The computer itself is only 3 years old! 

So my question is, should I try a new memory chip before giving up on it and sending it over to the pros?

Thanks in advance!

[CherylG]

Have you checked if your cpu fan is turning freely on startup?

[caradais]

Well it certainly seems to be running freely, I've got no reason to suspect otherwise.

Message Edited by caradais on 09-23-2009 12:01 AM

[CherylG]

A fan that isn't turning, or not turning fast enough to cool the cpu can cause shutdowns.

Before replacing the memory, test it with one of the free tools listed here.I have used both Memtest86 and Windows Memory Diagnostic:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/memorytest.htm

[caradais]

Well as I said, the fan seems to be absolutely fine; and I was just wondering how to test the memory if the computer shuts down? I'm confused...

[caradais]

I just thought I would post back and say that it was the motherboard that had somehow blown.  Replaced it with another ASUS motherboard, which is dual core and has twice the memory.

So now I have a defunct ASUS motherboard with two memory chips going begging.  If anyone wants some spares let me know!

Now I've just got to re-locate the entire spec for this PC...