Hello all!
Three weeks ago I was playing a game of Solitaire when my computer went click and I said to myself "My computer just shut down! But how can that be, I still have graphics! And my mouse can move the cursor! Very strange!" I kept on playing and then it happened again. Click, whir down, whir up. Then again and again until Windows shut down and gave me a stop error.
The first thing I did was to backup my most recent work and then I researched the stop error. The next day I was told that what I was hearing was my harddrive stopping and starting so I researched that. Thanks to the advice I have found in old threads I have spent three weeks running Malwarebytes, SAS, Kaspersky's Rescue disk, HJT ( then I learned how to read a HJT log), the manufacturer's diagnostic on my harddrive, Memtest (both of these passed), removing peripherals and programs (although I never did find a way to disable caching or shadowing), and researching the various stop errors I have gotten in the process. During this process it has had periods of running just fine and then all of a sudden it starts misbehaving again.
It has done the Click, whir down, whir up (or not even back up again) in normal, safe and even with prewindows disks like Recovery Console. The click sound is exactly the last sound you hear when your computer shuts off so I think it is the computer stopping and starting not the harddrive. This has lead me to believe that the Windows errors are the result of a hardware issue. If my logic is incorrect someone wiser than I should set me straight on this.
Since my harddrive and memory both passed I started thinking about the Power Supply Unit. Then I started thinking about one year ago when I got this computer.
When I first got it I set it up, checked it out and turned it off. Awhile later I passed the room and it was on again. I figured that I must have hit restart so I shut it down again, paying close attention to what I was doing, but after an hour or so it came back on again. I researched it but never found an answer so I just got in the habit of shutting off the power bar. When you restore power it turns on, does a self test and turns off again (according to the IBM site this is correct procedure) and I must turn it back on to use it.
Then yesterday a new development. I got it going and it seemed to be fine but when I shut it down, turned off the monitor and stood up, it turned on again!
There is no burning smell which I read is a major indicator of PSU trouble.
I just don't know what to do next. Any thoughts?
