PC Cutting Out

My PC generally cuts out 1 or 2 times mainly when it' just booting up or within minutes of booting up. Gives me the old blue screen.

Any ideas if this is likely a Power Supply or maybe even a memory prob?

can you give us the error msg you get on the blue screen ?

i would say it would be a hard drive related issue. usually if your pc is overheating it will normally just switch itself off.

could be faulty memory or hard disk, if it's blue screening i don't think it power related.

Go into BIOS and check that the Hard drive is set to IDE.

see if you can get a shot of the crash screen and post it. quick test if you have 2 sticks of ram remove one and boot if it crashes put that back and pull the other one out.
Last time i had that problem with someones pc it was indeed a bad ram stick...

boot from a live cd to quicktest the hard drive, if it still crashes then probs not the hard drive

might be the cpu overheating....does it cut out while booting up on the tries after it stays on for a few mins, or even from a cold start?
if it was a hdd issue, it shouldn't start up at all, or atleast cut out while booting

Guys

Can't quite get a screenshot of the blue screen as the PC starts booting up again almost immediately

It only happens when it's jus been booted up. Sometimes takes 2 to 3 attempts to get fully booted up.

After it stabilises for a few mins it us generally ok

I am happy to replace the faulty part(s). Just trying to figure out what part it is!

Cheers for the continued help though

You need to turn off automatic reboot:
XP:

1. Right click My Computer > Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab from the systems properties page.
3. In the Startup and Recovery portion choose Settings.
4. Under system failure remove the checkmark next to Automatically restart.
5. Click Ok twice.

Vista and Win7:

1. Start > Control panel > System.
2. From the System Window look on the Left hand side of the window and you will see a list of options. Click on the Advanced System Settings option (you'll get a UAC pop up if you've not turned this 'feature' off).
3. In the Advanced Settings window look for the Startup and Recovery section and then click the Settings.
4. Look for the section marked System failure and remove the 'tick' mark from the 'Automatically Restart' option > 'OK'.
5. Back in System properties click 'OK' once more and then close the window.

Once you've done that you can note down the STOP error and post back.

what ram is it?

check bios and see if you can give the ram a bit more in the volts department.

i had 2 sticks and it would crash everytime with the 2 sticks in, 1 stick booted fine, gave them a bit more juice in bios, problem gone, this was a few years back but worked for me.