My computer turns on fine. Sometimes I can get as far as trying to run a program when I get to the Windows desktop, but more often than not I cant even get as far as my login screen. What happens is, is my computer, at seemingly random times, "hangs". The monitor turns off, but the computer does not. It changes noise, as if it were in standby mode, and pressing the reset button on the tower or CTRL ALT DEL has no effect. The only way I can turn the PC off is to hold down the on/off button. It seemed to do this more when I tried to run a game, or a RAM intensive program, but now it is completely random. I tried starting in safe mode, running scandisk, virus checker or defrag, but all of these things make it "hang" Do I have a virus, or is there somthing wrong with the motherboard or hard disk? If it is a virus, how can i get my computer to stay on long enough to fix it, and how do I fix it?

jimmy_stavros, SWAG, my initial thought was to try safe mode. Seems you have already tried that. Makes me suspect a 'nasty'. Believe if it was me, I'd TEMPORARILY disable Restore, clean P.C. (AV), re-enable Restore & try again. If you have been afflicted by a critter, that should let you clean it out. In the process, you will lose all your restore points, but if it works, who cares? Or... HTH. Ed in Texas.

Speaking of RAM have you checked it ? Go inside the box and make sure everything's seated properly and securely. Then try running F-Prot Antivirus for DOS. Then take your memory out and reseat that and check it using a memory diagnostic tool like DocMemory v1.45a or Memtest86. Be prepared for a wait while running them, you might wanna do it during the day when your out, or over night. Or on holiday in some cases.

Ive re-seated all of my RAM, and checked everything else, but no difference. A couple of times it started doing the standy thing as soon as I turned the computer on. Ive cant get it to stay on long enough to try any of the things suggested. Any other ideas? There is a button battery on my motherboard (like in a watch). could that have anything to do with it?

From what you've said it's unlikely to be the CMOS battery. Both the anti virus and memory testers mentioned are tiny and run from a floppy disk, you don't have to stay online that long to get them. DocMemory is 200kb Memtest86 is 50 kb (give or take) FPROT 3.14e for DOS is 2.10 MB It takes at least 2 minutes to write and post here, ample time to get the first two. Use Download Mage 185c as a download manager to get stuff you can't get, it's 278 kb and will give you a resume funtion if your connection breaks and your download is disrupted while your getting FPROT. You really need to check your RAM (memory). Failing this try getting hold of some equivalent memory from a friend and use that, see if the fault persists. In fact ! looking at the amount of memory you have take one stick out and just run on the one stick. Assuming you have a 128 and a 256 stick, run on the 128 stick first, and see if the problem is there. Then swap over and run the 256 stick. It's unlikely that both are going bad. That will give you a diagnoses of whether the problem lies with your memory or not. (That's assuming both aren't going bad)

Cheers Viking, Ill give the RAM thing a go, good idea! Its not that I cant stay on the internet long enough, its that my computer wont stay on long enough full stop. I used a bootdisk and started up in DOS, which gave me a bit more time, but the DocMemory and Memtest86 wont run in DOS. The f-prot is meant to, but is too big to fit on a disk. Ill have to try and get it on the HD before it dies! Im using my work computer and an old computer at home to get online, but both are without CR writers, so cant do that yet. Any more ideas would be greatly appreciated. Ill try anything!

Just a quick FYI Jimmy. DocMemory, you double click it and choose "Make boot disk". You insert a floppy and make the disk. Put it in the machine, boot with it and run it, following the on screens. And from the MemTest86 readme: To create a Memtest86 bootdisk 1) Insert a blank write enabled floppy disk. 2) As root, Type "make install" Put it in the machine, boot with it and run it following the on screens. And if you do run either, then I really do suggest you scan one stick at time, thinking about it. Shouldn't take that long either. But you should get a quick preliminary result by just seeing what happens running each stick seperatly in the machine, and seeing if the fault clears when using either one.