OT: computer turns off by itself.

[Mike W]

It is kind of strange. When it shuts down, xp closes any open windows and then logs off and shuts down. Not like you would expect if the power just failed. I just got a flash drive with Linux on it that I can boot it up with. I was going to try that just for fun.

[BadDog]

Oh, well that's another animal entirely. You can program a "soft off" for the power switch such that a momentary press tells windows to shut down. So a contact in the switch momentarily shorting could trigger that. Likewise, when off, a momentary short could trigger the power on. It's not really an on/off switch, but rather just a trigger that is software latched in the mobo. Starting to sound more like the switch...

[b2u44]

I tend to agree with BadDog on this one. I had forgotten about the soft shutdown that can be triggered by the power switch. His diagnosis makes a lot of sense.

If you change the action that happens when you push the power button (it's a setting under the "Power Options" control pannel), see if that action happens instead of the computer shutting down automatically. I recommend the "Ask me what to do" option. If that window pops up randomly, instead of the computer shutting down, then you've really isolated the problem.

[Evan]

If you have a reset button just move that wire to the power on connector position and try it for a while.

[Mike W]

It ran fine for a couple of hours last night and several today. After this morning I swapped the reset switch for the power switch and will see what it does.