PC crashes even after format/reinstall

[quaxo]

That "WinRAR" file is an ISO (WinRAR can open ISO files), so pulling that out of the downloaded zip was the correct move.

Now you need to use a CD burning program to use the ISO to create a CD.

[reisender]

I burnt a second disk last weekend (imgbrn) and it did the same thing.  It booted at startup and the prog came up asking for a choice of 1 or 2,, but none of the keys on my keyboard respond to the program (or viceversa I guess) so nothing happens.  I had a couple of days where there were none or just 1-2 crashes, and then suddenly they came back full force again.  So I bought a new laptop and will bring the PC into the shop this coming weekend.

I'll report back with the results when I get them.
Thanks very much everyone in the meantime. 
I always (and only really) learn more about PCs when they crash on me.

[mylogon]

just curious. did you try to use a PS/2, USB or RF keyboard why doing these mem tests?
thanks

[reisender]

Future Shop, where I bought the PC and still have it under warranty has called and told me that they ran a diagnostics test and it passed.  Didn't crash once on them either.  They did say they cleaned it out (dust) so that might help.  See what happens when I get it back home. 

About the keyboard, I use a ps/2 Japanese one with Japanese settings, though windows is English.  I wondered if that might have been an issue. 
I'm guessing however that check they do at futureshop woud be better?  I'm trying to get them to give me the name of the test. 

[Computer_Commando]

Just let us know, it's probably fixed now.

[reisender]

Just got back from future shop.  They said they did diagnostic tests - PC TEST and BURN IN.  Came out clean, never crashed on them.
They said that this test all the hardware and if it doesn't find anything, it isn't the hardware, but the software - which they supplies (windows 7).
So I took it back home, plugged it in and in about 20 minutes, same thing happened. 

the PC is effectively useless. 
They didn't clean out the PC like they said, but did a half-assed job when I got there and mentioned it, didn't think it was an issue.

After crashing just now, I unplugged it as usual and plugged it back in to get it to restart, but this time the screen didn't come on, the PC didn't beep when it does when it boots, and the power button was dim when it's usually bright.  Happened twice, and now it's back up and running - finally got it happening on video so I can show them. 

Frustrating.

[Geek-9pm]

reisender,
Few here remember what PC you have. It would help if you would include more information. Is this a laptop?

[reisender]

sorry, I thought everything was clear in the OP. 
It's a desktop.

[Brokel]

It is possible you have a MBR virus there is one floating around on the net , only way yto fix it is to do a compleat disk wipe not the one that comes with windows somthing like cfdisk in Linux ..

[reisender]

FFS,
so they tell me according to them, everything is fine and they are convinced it is not the hardware, so must be software.
Funny thing is it's wiped clean except for the windows software they gave it to me with.  but they say this isn't covered under warranty and it will cost me (at a generous discount  ) $40 for them to do what they think is the last thing, to format and reinstall windows themselves and see what issues might come up.  seems like bs to me. 

So I asked them to give me new windows cds and right now I tried to install it.  It loaded the windows files, started the setup and while 'loading image files' at 0% the CD ejects and it says "there is insufficient space on the disk for the temporary files required for this operation." and it happens everytime I try to reinstall.  I've used the former setup disks and the same thing happens.  If I try to boot normally, I get "BOOTMGR is missing, press ctrl+alt+del to restart" on a loop. 

Then the kicker, the PC crashes while on the "insufficent space" message in setup as well as the BOOTMGR message.  Still a problem with software??

my PC is now unusable. 
i don't know what to do.

[Geek-9pm]

What happens if you...
Unplug the Hard drive...
Boot from a floppy..
Run a simple little something from the floppy. Like an old DOS arcade game, set in demo mode...

Leave it for an hour. Does it crash?

The reason I ask is that some strange issues are from unknown Hard drive failure modes. Dives ya' crazy.
Windows will be crashing if the HDD becomes un-reliable.
MS-DOS keeps running even if the floppy shreds itself!

[Brokel]

get mbrcheck.exe and scan for a mbr virus if you have one it will cause the issues you describe and will not be detected by a normal virus scans and most pc repair shops will not check the mbr ( master boot record ) I hope this helps ..

http://windows7themes.net/how-to-check-mbr-for-virus-infection-via-mbrcheck.html

[reisender]

@geek-9pm
I am really clueless when it comes to hardware, so I'm hesitant to unplug the hard drive, but I did try this.
I have an old floppy drive and from right clicking and formating, I made a dos boot disk and tried it with an old dos game.
I booted dos from startup with F12 and choosing the usb floppy drive.
The game worked but the PC crashed after about ... 5-10 minutes.

@brokel
I downloaded the program, and tried to run it from a floppy at startup the same way as above, and an error message came up saying it wouldn't run from dos.  I can't seem to get into windows safe mode.  On windows 7, safe mode is supposed to be F8, but there is no F8 option and it simply doesn't work - I guess that's because there's no windows to get into its safe mode.  Is there another way I can run this scan?

Futureshop tells me to just bring it in and they'll take it to their depot to run more extensive hardware tests.  guess I'll do that this weekend (and no doubt it'll take weeks to get back) but before I do, I want to know if there's anything else I should try.

[Brokel]

From the sounds of it I really do not think it is a hardware issue , your bios could be trashed which will cause it to shutdown like you describe ir the cpu may be over heating try and remove the heat-sink from the processor and cleaning the thermal past and putting new thermal past on .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg4t2kkXrkM&feature=related
try thias video it will show you how to clean the cpu and heat-sink   ..

Hope thsi helps ..

[reisender]

Ok, I went and bought thermal paste, took off my heatsink, cleaned it and the cpu with rubbing alcohol and added new paste.  Never knew about any of this stuff before.  This may or may not stop my PC from overheating and crashing, but how do I get my windows back