# Dell Inspiron keeps shutting down for no reason



## yoppy79 (Nov 12, 2007)

I am completely fed up with Dell's technical support who continues to tell me that there is "nothing wrong from what they can tell" with my computer. It is less than a year old and it keeps shutting down for no reason. Sometimes, it goes to a black screen with a few lines about a boot error, and sometimes it freezes and tells me there is a security center problem, and sometimes it gives me the blue screen of death.

I turn to you, friends, to see what else I can do. I have reformated my computer, I have taken out and put back in my memory cards, and probably a million things in between that I don't remember. Here are the basics.

Dell Inspiron Desktop 518
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4600 @ 2.40GHz
3 GB of RAM

I am open to any and all ideas... thanks everyone!


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## CyborgCop (Feb 11, 2009)

it could be overheating


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## vladimirb (Mar 31, 2008)

hello and welcome to TSF...
We need more information about your PC...
Is it dusted from the inside???
Check in BIOS temperatures...

Keep us posted...


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## yoppy79 (Nov 12, 2007)

I'm sorry, I'm not that familiar with the computer lingo.

What do I need to do to figure out this:
_Is it dusted from the inside???
Check in BIOS temperatures..._


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## vladimirb (Mar 31, 2008)

Hello again...
Open one side of the case and check if you have dust inside the case...
If you have never cleaned dust from inside the case and you have PC for a year or so, than you must blow the dust with compressed air...
Find CPU cooler and blow the dust too...
Would be awesome of you can replace thermal paste that resides between CPU and CPU cooler...
Make sure you remove old thermal paste with alcohol...
I would recommend Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/

To check temperatures in BIOS, when you start PC, hit DEL, F1, F2 or F10 [it depends which key you need to hit] and you will enter BIOS, something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

Look for Hardware tab or Monitoring tab and check for temperatures...
Or, you can download SpeedFun and check for temperatures:

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

But temperatures in BIOS are always more accurate...

Keep us posted...


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## yoppy79 (Nov 12, 2007)

I will do this, however, my computer is only about 5 months old. I will keep you posted. Thank you.


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

get a can of air and blow the dust out of the computer
turn it off first
in the bios which you usually enter by pressing the delete key during the first screens you see
on the advanced tab at the top click on it and look for
hardware monitoring
hardware health or some similar wording
then post what you see for the cpu temperature and the 12 line voltage


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