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Any ideas why my computer keeps turning itself off? Sometimes it will run fine for 3 hours or so, others 10 minutes, seems to be really with videos playing it crashes etc. I have been told it may be the fan so have bought a new one. Any other ideas?

is there enough thermal compound  between cpu and fan. if not enough it could cause overheating and pc shuts down.

There should be, i have bought some more (only £2.00) and a new fan as its over 5 years old to see if that makes any difference. have used Malwarebytes to see if any spyware but cant find any....

Even the Computer thinks you are a boring cunt! xxxxx

Bit vague there Gaz, could be anything. For starters, which fan did you replace? i.e. case fan? cpu heatsink (or the fan on it) or the graphics card heatsink?

Have you tried downloading and installing up to date graphics drivers?
It happens with video - what type? Flash video? DVD video? any video? What do you play videos through? e.g. Windows Media Player.

Does the computer restart itself or just shut down? Have you ever seen a blue screen with an error message on it?

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

It's the case fan I have replaced. Well i have ordered but not yet replaced but will do. I get no warning messages that the PC is going to shut down so I have been told at work that would indicate it is just shutting down as it is over-heating.

Its mostly flash video, like you tube etc.

Funnily enough my internet connection dies as well every so often if I open more 3 or 4 tabs at the same time.

What Si Pie said, plus could be your memory going shitside (as in RAM, not senility)

I have plenty of RAM in there and barely anything on the PC, even turned off Windows 7 aero thinking that was part of the issue!

Its overheating, either CPU or Graphics card, very unlikely to be anything else.

When you apply the thermal compound DON NOT put on too much, put on abou the size of a grain of rice, no more no less.

Also make sure that the CPU fan is plugged into the right header on the motherboard, also check that the Grpahics card fan is turning and has not fallen off.

That is all.

Could even be the graphics card itself on the way out if updated drivers make no difference

Right click my computer and find the option to throw an error screen instead of powering off. You should be able to capture the BSOD then

I was going to say have you checked the event viewer, but then I'd have to explain how to do that.

Just check the CPU temp in Bios, that'll rule that in or out quite quickly. Even if it's not under load, if it's not on right or the sink is fucked, the temp will be abnormally high.

If the Chip or Graphics Card are overheating then there will almost definatly not be a BSOD.
If the graphics card is overheating then there is a good chance there will be graphical artifacts on the screen, or random locking up just before it reboots/wierd characters appearing.

Sounds to me like its the CPU 95% graphics card 5%

My new Graphics card is not installed its the basic one on the mother board as the 2 graphics cards kept interferring with each other (dont know how to disable the one on the motherboard) , my screen would just start up saying "out of range", when I installed the decent graphics card, i since found out is because the motherboard graphics card kept installing itself automatically becuase windows found it was there and it clashed with the new graphics card so the PC did not know which graphics card to use. Again not sure how to disable the motherboard one. I want my new graphics card set up so I can almost 100% say its either the fan or the fan where the compound is if it is not malware. As I say it just shuts itself off.

Thanks JJ, i get no strange graphics, just Shuts itself off without warning.

Whatever it is, at least you don't have as many trojan viruses, spoof anti-virus software and rootkits as herthab's kiddy porn laptop.

I had a problem with my computer showing BSOD almost every time I played video's, or left it on for more than 3/4hours, for a few months. After spending some time updating drivers, checking connections, installing and uninstalling flash I decide to clean the filth from the inside. 5 minutes of dusting and vacuuming later and I've not had a problem since!

Yeah, that'll do it. Have you been a filthy boy, Gazza?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/ventblockers/page3.html

That's not far off how it looked.

I have seen a few like that in my time, usually PC's kept under desks at floor level, yuck.

Interestingly enough I put my new video card in the PC and it never shut off once.... maybe the video card on the mother board is shot. Only downside is, my computer graphics cards seem to be conflicting wiht each other, this is likely down to me not uninstalling the old graphics card before putitng the new one in, so I can easily resolve this, but how do I disable the motherboard graphics card? The graphics card has a fan on it (the new one), and I have  a new PC fan on order so I am leaning towards the graphics card being knackered or something as its over heating, THat said I've only had it a few months.

You don't normally need to uninstall the onboard graphics, the PC will just output via both which is usually no problem.

You could disable the onboard graphics in device manager. Note I said disable not uninstall, otherwise you'll cause yourself a whole world of shit if your graphics cards goes tits up in the future.

You don't need to uninstall or disable anything on the "on board graphics" the new grahics Card will over ride it.

When you say you are having conflicts....what exactly do you mean?

Oh and BTW you have removed the monitor cable from the on-board socket into the socket on the new Graphics Card haven't you?

My computer comes screen comes back saying "out of reange" which is a nightmare and I have to re-start my computer and remove the graphics card to get it working again...

out of range error means you are trying to display a picture thats is too high a setting for your monitor to cope with mate.

Your monitor will have a max resolution 800x600 - 1280x800 - 1024x768 (as I know its an old monitor) and your system is set to display a setting higher than that, uninstall the graphics card driver (new one) reboot the pc, then let it set itself automatically.

That should do it.

Or the refresh rate is set too high......70hz on a 60hz monitor.

If it only does it in certain games etc then the game screen resolution settings are fucked and need to be reset.

is there a way of manually re-setting the graphics settings?

Is there not some sort of NSPCPC we could send round to confiscate Gazza's computer? :)

Sometimes it can be done in safe mode but not always successful. press F8 on boot up and reset the graphics settings back to the lowest available.

HAHA :D, I have an old computer I am updateing, Got a new motherboard, new graphics card, just need a new processor now I think as the computer is still a bit sluggish