[Solved] Computer keeps shutting down

As usual, I'm having a problem and hoping the good people of TH can help me.

I believe I'm having a motherboard problem. If I'm wrong, please move this post to the proper forum.

I have an HP m7260n desktop computer. It is about 6 or 7 years old but always worked fine. My father uses it for 3 reasons; chat on aim, check e-mail and scan slides.

The PC just refuses to stay on. It now shuts down for no reason even when he's not doing anything.

Naturally, I would think it's an overheating problem.

The fan works great. I cleaned out the little dust inside and changed the power supply. Same problem. Thought of changing the heatsink but it is as cool as it could be; since it's not hot at all, I don't think that's the problem.

I changed the CMOS battery. No luck.

I accessed the bios. Nothing unusual.

I used one of those PCI Diagnostics tools. Got the code FF which says the problem has to do with system booting.

Not sure if this is true though because occasionally, Windows does load up. Safe mode loads up also. It just won't stay on.

It's highly unlikely to be a virus.

It makes sense to me that it's a motherboard problem since everything else seems to be working fine.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any help!

try another power cable if that doesnt work try another Power Supply see if that helps

try a different hard disk

if the hard disk is failing it will boot and the windows will load but midway the hard disk will just power down and then power up again causing the computer to restart

check capacitors by the cpu socket ..are they swollen like balloned ..that could be ur problem

Best answer selected by skeptikaltruth.

This topic has been closed by Nikorr