This keeps happening extremely often and without warning! The computer seems to go dead: the screen goes black (the monitor appears to turn off because the green power light goes off, and the orange standby light comes on), all hard drive and optical drive activity stops, there's no sounds to alert any errors, mouse and keyboard commands have no effect (not even ctrl+alt+del responds, nor does the PC speaker sound). However, power is still running through it because the PC power light is still on and the fans are still running. Heat doesn't have anything to do with it because it has happened both a few seconds after boot up, and after hours of playing graphics-intensive games. Plus I have pleanty of fans, I've checked the heatsinks to make sure they're contacting properly, and done several heat tests. I've elimnated power supply issues because my PSU is new, in perfect condition and distributes more than enough power for the components I have. Plus, I've experienced power failures with other PCs so I can tell when one happens. In this case, power is obvioiusly still flowing. This problem showed up before, and it was diagnosed as a ram problem. It was true that I had low-quality ram at the time so it seemed plausible. I replaced it with 2 256mb sticks of Kingston PC3200 DDR, and that appeared to eliminate the problem. After that it only happened once every few months instead of every time I turn it on. But now what worries me is that it must be something other than that RAM if it happens with factory tested name brand modules. Any ideas about what else it might be? I beg of you!!! My PC's busted. But I have good news: I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico.

"I've elimnated power supply issues because my PSU is new, in perfect condition and distributes more than enough power for the components I have" Humor us & list the make, model, wattage of this new PSU...along with the amperage on the +3.3v, +5v, & +12v rails.

Straight from the Powmax website, the manufacturer of my case and PSU: " POWMAX 6100C 300W DUAL FAN POWER SUPPLY FEATURES 300 Watts Maximum Output Dual Ball Bearing Fan Design With External Fan 24 PIN TO 20 PIN Connector Built-in Serial ATA Connectors Built-in Voltage Overload Protection Voltage Switch For 115/230V AC Input Shielded Tube to Reduce EMI Support Intel "Pentium-4" and AMD "Athlon XP" Complies With ATX 2.03 and ATX12V 1.1 SPECIFICATIONS Model: PSLP6100C Dimensions 6"Wx3.6H"x6.6"D Material All Metal Construction AC Input 115/230, 10A/6A, 60Hz/50Hz Max Load +3.3@28A, +5@30A, +12@15A, -5@0.3A, -12@0.8A, +5vsb@2A MTBF 100K Hrs at 25°C Ambient Conditions Efficiency 70% Min. at Full Load Noise Level Maximum of 37db at 100% System Loading Safety UL, CB, CE, TUV, and FCC " I don't have mega power-sucking components, but still, the symtoms don't match that of a PSU failure. The system would turn off completely and abruptly if it was a power failure. Thanks for the response so far, but what's your theory? My PC's busted. But I have good news: I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico.

I suspect either you have a problem with XP's support of the ACPI/APM features of your mboard, or your PS is wonky. Whenever you load Windows from scratch, after Setup has finished you must load the proper drivers for your mboard so that Windows has the proper info about your mboard, including it's ACPI/APM support. If you haven't done that since the last time you loaded Windows from scratch, do that. That said, there are a few mboards that have ACPI/APM support that doesn't get along properly with XP's support of that. I suspect your PS probably either just barely has enough capacity, or it doesn't have quite enough capacity, and/or it is malfunctioning. A malfunctioning PS can have all sorts of symptoms, and it can certainly partially work and not be completely dead. Powmax is not a brand I am familar with - sounds like an el-cheapo brand to me - el-cheapo PSs are a lot more likely to cause you problems, and their max capacity is often a lie. Check your PS. See response 4 in this: http://www.computing.net/hardware/w... Even if you don't find anything wrong, your PS may be wonky intermittantly. To check for that load a mboard monitoring utility in Windows that can run all the time and set it to alert you when voltages (or temperatures) get out of whack.

"I've elimnated power supply issues because my PSU is new, in perfect condition and distributes more than enough power for the components I have" Humor us & list the make, model, wattage of this new PSU...along with the amperage on the +3.3v, +5v, & +12v rails. Humor us indeed! The PowMax 300w power supply sells for a whopping $16.99 at newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ... Now, I'm not saying that price is necessarily the only indication of quality. But, I wouldn't put any $17 power supply in any machine I own - EVER. Michael J