My computer has been randomly shutting down by itself lately. It happens when i'm working in Photoshop sometimes, but it always does that when i try to scan it with an anti-virus program (Norton anti-virus and McAfee online scan). It starts scanning and after 10 minutes or so it shuts down. Could it be a virus?

Read the Event Viewer and post the error messages you find there. Beauty of the high sierra, and she's looking out for you.

there is no error message. i went to the activity record and all it shows is: Scan started

What about "warnings"? There should be three different logs: System, Applications, Security. Start>>Control Panel>>Administrative Tools>>Event Viewer Even if there aren't error messages, something is going to show up there as having occurred on 05/29/05. What do you see? Beauty of the high sierra, and she's looking out for you.

i thnink that your CPU is getting hot when the load increaes on it, check the fan speed and monitor what happens to the cpu temperature after a shutsown occurs , open the computer again and get into the Bios settings by pressing DEL after apening it go to PC Health and check the CPU Temperature , and the Fan Speed

sorry i misunderstood you the first time >_< yes there are 3 error msgs: the following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load: SAVRT Event Type: Error Event Source: Service Control Manager Event Category: None Event ID: 7001 Date: 5/29/2005 Time: 10:02:24 PM User: N/A Computer: SESSHOUM-H8RS39 Description: The SAVScan service depends on the SAVRT service which failed to start because of the following error: A device attached to the system is not functioning. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. Event Type: Error Event Source: SAVRT Event Category: None Event ID: 20 Date: 5/29/2005 Time: 10:01:25 PM User: N/A Computer: SESSHOUM-H8RS39 Description: Unable to initialize the virus scanning engine database files. Data: 0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 54 00 ......T. 0008: 00 00 00 00 14 00 07 c0 .......À 0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ 0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........ thanx, i'll check the temperature and fan speed next time this happens.

Your sources are Service Control Manager, and SAVRT. Your ID codes are 7001 and 20. Plug 'em in: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/ee/search.aspx?DisplayName=Windows%20XP%20Professional&ProdName=Windows%20Operating%20System&MajorMinor=5.1&LCID=1033 THEN post some more concise questions, if that doesn't reconcile the problem. Beauty of the high sierra, and she's looking out for you.