Shutting Down And Freezing During Internet Downloads ?

[Robert11]

Hello,

Am a Sr. Citizen now, very, so please bear with me a bit.

Have a 2 year old Dell XPS 8900 Desktop.
Nothing fancy; no gaming, etc. Pretty basic setup.
Has always worked just fine.

But now, the screen goes blank, and PC shuts down.

Have narrowed it down, I think, to when it is connected to the internet
AND actually is loading anything via the internet.

Does about, e.g., 5 minutes or so of downloading, then a total freeze.

Can't even Boot into Safe Mode.
The only thing that will work on trying reboots is the F12 Key. Nothing else, no other F Key.

So, I used the MS Media Creation Tool.
Great.
It allows me to get to my normal Desktop, etc.
Just fine, as long as I am not internet connected AND not downloading anything.
Then, same freeze up action.

Only way after happening is to go to F12, select the Media Creation Tool as the first
Boot device, and go thru the complete Tool re-creation procedure.
A real pain, and very time consuming, but seems to be the only thing that works.

Tried, via Device Manager, updating Drivers; bunch of items had a question mark next to them.
But, upon using the Tool again, they show as not having been updated ?

Also, hard to do these Driver updates, as after 5 minutes, usually during the installing phase, the
pc shuts down again.

The ones with a question mark were-
Display Adapter:
MS Basic Display Adapter
MS Basic Display Adapter

Other Devices:
PCI Data Acquisition and Signal Processing Controller
PCI Memory Controller
PCI Simple Communications Controller
SM Bus Controller

Totally out of ideas.

Think it may be a bad Video Card, or a true Drivers problem (only) ?
Or a bad video board now; e.g., a thermal problem causing shutdowns that has developed ?

Don't really want to put more money into pc if i can help it.
But, Amazon has some relatively cheap PCI Video Boards.
One is only $ 7.00. Worth a try ??

Can't imagine how all these devices need Driver updatings now ?
Can't imagine what might have changed in pc, all of a sudden.

Would be most appreciative for any thoughts and suggestions.

Hard for me to do these "things" now, so if you have any suggestions
would respectfully request a step by step and detailed instructions.

Thanks, appreciate the help,
Bob

 

[Bighorn]

It does sound like a hardware issue, possibly video related but since data is being written to/stored on the hard drive could be an issue there as in from the motherboard through the data cable to the drive.

As for the video card, I don't think you want the PCI model, most likely need a PCI-e X16. The card between the older PCI and the newer PCI-e is an AGP, haven't seen many of those lately.

 

[bassfisher6522]

To me, it sounds more like a system file(s) corruption and if that is the case this is what I would do. First backup (save) any thing important (pictures, documents, files) to a USB thumb drive. Then I would do a factory install using Dells procedure.
https://www.dell.com/support/articl...-microsoft-windows-on-a-dell-computer?lang=en

 

[Grizzly]

I had that exact problem with a HP Laptop not too long ago. As long as I did not download anything from the web it worked fine. Turned out the hard drive had too many bad sectors. After replacing the hard drive and reinstalling everything, the laptop was running like new again....

may be something to consider...

 

[Norton]

The laptop could be overheating? Is the airflow being restricted by dust bunnies.

 

[BigFeet]

The ones with a question mark were-
Display Adapter:
MS Basic Display Adapter
MS Basic Display Adapter

Other Devices:
PCI Data Acquisition and Signal Processing Controller
PCI Memory Controller
PCI Simple Communications Controller
SM Bus Controller

What you can do (and you may need to download these from another PC) is go to dell's website and download the graphics and chipset drivers. http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/product-support/product/xps-8900-desktop/drivers

There are 2 graphics drivers. One for the intel hd graphics, and one for the nvidia graphics (if you have an nvidia graphics card, you'll need both). The chipset drivers should take care of the "other devices".