Unwanted shutdown

[conroy]

Two of my computers have started shutting down on a random basis. Sometimes half way through boot up and sometimes after running for 10 or so minutes.
One is a Pentium II 550 on an Asus board in a full tower macase with a 300W power supply, the other one is a MSI borad with an Athlon 1Ghz CPU in a midi case with 250W power supply.

Has anyone had this problem? Is it likely to be the power supply or the motherboard?

Both systems have a case fan fitted and work in an airconditioned room, so overheating should not be a problem.

[rakki]

1. virus ?
2. unstable power supply grid
3. overheating inside case

if it's 2 computers, i am guessing 1 or 2....

[brad]

Rakki made good points. In addition, a 300 watt psu should be enough for the P2-550 but 250 seldom is for a 1 Ghz t-bird unless it is a very basic system with a high-performance AGP card, one HD, one floppy, and one CD device. 250 is marginal at best and prolonged use may have slowly eaten it. If the box has any more devices than that then it is a safe bet that 350 watts would be a much more appropriate capacity.

It does sound like power problems to me as well but just for grins, put the 300 watt psu into the AMD box and see what happens.

Brad