one of those dialog boxes that says comething about closing apllication (AOL) popped up and said to click “End Now” if i didn’t have anything i wanted saved in the program. so, i clicked “End Now”, figuring it’d just close AOL since AOL’s been freezing up alot lately anyways. and the whole computer shuts down. so, what the hell is wrong with my computer? no one’s hacked into it or given it a virus have they?
I dunno. Have you checked? If you don’t already have antivirus software, go to www.antivirus.com for a free scan.
The, get yourself both Ad-Aware and Spybot.
You may also need to completely uninstall and re-install AOL.
Just guessing as you didn’t say what kind of computer or operating system you have.
i already have Ad-Aware, and i think i have SpyBot - or Spy-something-or-another. my computer has windows XP.
does your keyboard have a power off button by any chance?
When a computer is ‘told’ to shut down it goes through a process of shutting all the running apps. If the app fails to shut down normally (as AOL notoriously does) then windows tries to ‘end task’ it, which causes the message you got.
is it possible you pressed the power off button on the keyboard by accident?
no, just about the only way i can turn off the computer via the keyboard is to hit the start button and then hit U. but when you do that, you get a little blue box that says “Turn Off” “Restart” and “Stand By”. and “Cancel” at the bottom. you have to hit one of these 3 to shut down. when the computer does what i described in the first post (which it just did again a couple minutes ago), it just tells you it’s ending programs, and goes to the blue screen on XP that says “Shutting Down”, and then it cuts off.
Perhaps overheating or bad memory? I had BOTH of these problems a few months ago. If it just shuts off randomly, no blue screen or memory failure notification, it’s more likely overheating. My suggestion: run something processor intensive, like an anti-virus scan or disk defrag, and see if it restarts in the middle of it. Or, alternatively, go into the BIOS and check the CPU temp. But this isn’t aklways reliable, as the idle temp can vary a lot from the working temp.
Surely virus scan and disk defrag would be disk-intensive, therefore processor-gentle? Better to try converting a whole load of music files from one format to another, something of that nature.
But yes, with XP, it sounds like an overheating problem. Extra tip - if you get any error message, write down exactly what’s there, and put it into google (inside quote marks). Often this will take you to a helpful page.
Hmm, overheating does sound like a possibility - I’ve heard of computers switching off as a safety precaution.
Your bios might have a processor temprature reading (usually under a heading like ‘pc health’) press ‘del’ when prompted at startup, and see if your bios has a cpu temp reading.
Another thought - could be the Blaster worm. http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/blast.asp
Also, it may be in the power supply in the box. I had one that would TURN ON whenever it felt like it. I would pull the cover and clean it out with a bit of canned air. Make sure your fans are running. Button it back up and try again.
Pish posh. All these technical possibilities. Seems clear enough to me. You keep forcing AOL on your computer, and it has become so depressed about it that it tried to commit suicide - though it was really just a plea for help. Have you considered enrolling it in therapy?
If you have an Intel processor, then I’d say it sounds like it may be overheating. If it’s an AMD though, then your problem might be something else entirely. Do you know what kind of processor you have?
AMDs overheat too.
Yes, but until recently AMD processors had no built-in heat-monitoring, so you might expect an AMD to freeze up rather than shut down.
I had an overheating problem with my laptop and it would just shut down immediately. I got in the habit of vacuuming out the vents once a month or so, problem solved.
Warning: Vacuuming inside any computer is a BAAAD idea, because vacuum cleaners can create massive amouts of static electricity, which can easily damage components. As was said earlier, use a can of compressed air instead (available from any computer shop, as is an anti-static wrist-strap to be doubly sure)
As long as we’re talking Bad Idea avoidance, never run a disk defrag with the expectation of failure. That’s a good way to roll the dice on your filesystem integrity.
Windows XP has a feature where if there is a critical error that affects system stability, it will close all programs and shut down or reboot automatically. Does this problem consistently occur in the same situation all the time? It might be a problem with the software that’s corrupting the system stability. Check for overheating, but if the problem only happens when AOL is running, there may be a problem with the software.
It just so happens that citymom recently had her XP computer online downloading a large program evaluation version (fortunately it was on FTP and therefore resumable :eek: ) and the PC rebooted several times during the download. It has never done this before or since, even at other times when it was online.
Ah! I didn’t know that, thanks. My Athlon XP 2400+ has a setting in BIOS to shut down if it reaches a certain temp (I have it set at 60, but it never gets over 40).
Did it shutdown or go to sleep???