My computer will sometimes turn off without warning and go to a sleep like mode. the modem will not have power, but the power button will show the computer as on. At other times my computer will make a loud click and just restart like i have pushed the button off and on.. it does this without warning very often. I thought possibly it could be a virus, but i have reformatted the hdd and reinstalled xp so i do not believe that could be it. my question is.. is this a power supply failure, or has my hdd gone bad? Thanks in advance, Bryan Yother

i said the modem will not have power in the post above.. i meant the monitor.. sorry, i have no clue why i typed that.. CORRECTION: the monitor goes to a sleep like mode..

It doesn't quite sound like the worm. It's making everyone's system reboot. Yours is just kinda shutting down partially. Make sure you still patch your system and download the detector/remover from symantic.com or microsoft. Just reinstalling winders isn't going to save you from it or a variant. Please give more info: When did this start? Are u playing games or accessing cd drives when it goes on you? Lots of intermittent problems can be linked to the powersupply. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts to boot, windows freezes, you get different error codes that don't match up.

It has been doing this for about 4-5 months. I never play games, and there is nothing i have to do to trigger it. Sometimes it will do it as windows starts up.. sometimes it will do it while im not even at the computer. Sometimes it gets real bad, but other times it does it seldomly. windows does sometimes freeze up before it clicks off and restarts or goes into a sleep like mode. other times it just does it without warning. i have tried to have it repaired by circuit city twice and both times they have sent it back to me unrepaired. -Bryan

It certainly sounds like the power supply. You can't just test voltage on them, you won't see quick spikes or drops. If it was mine I'd replace the powersupply and see if that fixes it. I guess that the lights aren't dimming when it screws up. No, that would be too easy.

By the way you can usually tell when hard drives are dying because you'll start getting corrupted files. Some program that worked just fine yesterday and now can't find a file or has a corrupted file is a major cause of concern. If scandisk is finding alot of errors thats another good sign. If you have either of these problems start backing up anything you desperately want to keep first. Of course hdd failure on boot is bad too. If it isn't the cable or power... Sorry for being lengthy, lesson's over. Rock on.