Sister's computer, shuts down unexpectedly?

[Andeh13]

In short i built my sister a computer for her to take to uni, assembled it all without any problems, installed windows XP and tested it on the network here to update everything for her. It all worked without a hitch.

Last week i dropped it off for her and all worked fine, earlier today their internet got connected up. Because they are using a wireless setup, my sister & her flatmate installed a linksey wireless dongle for her to use. The installation went without any problems. After 5-10mins of testing it out, her friend advised her she needed anti-virus (she already had AVG on there....) and promptly started to download Mcafee for her. Long story short, half way through the download the computer just shut itself down, no BSOD, no sudden click of power loss, it just shut it self down. They obviously turned it back on, only for it to do it again after 20 odd seconds. Each time they turn it on, it shuts itself down.

iv never encoutered a problem like this before, so im stumped. Can anyone think of any causes for it? Like i said, it worked 100% fine for me, even when i used it on our network & my grandparents network (mine network via ethernet, grandparents via a belkin wireless dongle).

her PC specs; (except she has a Zalman 500watt PSU instead of the corsair)




thanks guys

[vinnyT]

Does it get to the windows bootscreen and then turn off?

If it does, try booting into safe mode, and see if this is stable. Hopefully it is, you then have go into msconfig and start disabling stuff in the start-up menu (a good clue would be to see anything Mcafee relarted and disable that), when you have disabled anything (make a note of it) try rebootin and see if windows boots stably.

Unfortunatly, there's some trail and error involved, I hope you get things sorted.

[Thorsson]

Have they taken the dongle out?

[Koolpc]

Sounds like it could be a virus problem. I would either start in safe mode or if that doesn't work, connect her hard drive to your pc, do a virus / spyware check on it. Save info and format again in her pc.

[jem]

Sounds like a virus,Run AVG in safe mode see what that brings up.I had the same thing but that was years ago,Ill try and think what virus it was and find the tool that removes it

[dshepsman]

could the PC be overheating?