Eddie, can you or your gut tell me how I, who know nothing, can find out if something's wrong with the CPU? Maybe I just need to get a private geek in here to look at it. I'm not taking the blasted thing back to Best Buy; they've had their chance.

Sometimes when it restarts, it tells me it needs to check the disk, but it never says anything's wrong with it after it does the scan.

Turn off the computer andopen the case. Make sure every single connector and cable is firmly in place as well.

After that, leave the case open and turn it on. Check to see that every fan, including the one in the power supply is spinning.

Then shut it down and put the cover on and run it for a while.

If it still turns off randomly, try running it with the cover off, that would keep it cooler. maybe have a fan pointed at it.

if it's a cooling issue, the mysterious shutdown shouldn't come back. If it does, it is possibly a failing CPU chip/card.

I will do that. Thank you.

Actually on modern case designs running them with the case open actually makes them run hotter. The fan systems are specifically designed for airflow across components to pull the heat away.

I'm in the market for more RAM for my G5. Dealram pointed me to Omni Technologies as having the current best price for what I want.

So, two questions. First, "2GB (2x1GB)" means 2 sticks of 1GB each, right? Second, does anyone have any experiences with this vendor? Good or bad?

Zenkitty, the other problem you may be having is that your power supply may be bad, or too small to support all the hardware running on your computer. Your problem sounds suspiciously like one I had, and power supply was the answer.

I'd be particularly suspicious if it turned out that the "seemingly at random" turned out to be "every time a CD or hard drive has to spin up." Spinning up a drive is one of the heavier strains on a power supply, and if it's bad, that's a common time for it to fail.

So I probably will get another drive for the Tivo within 4-6 weeks. Should I add another drive, or replace the drive I have?

Go to the Weaknees site; they'll walk you through the decision based on which model you have.

try running it with the cover off, that would keep it cooler.

For some computers this could cause areas of the computer to run hotter, maybe much hotter. A lot of times the fans are set up to pull air out of the case, and if the cover is open the are might not flow over the areas that need cooling.

One thing to check is that there isn't a lot of dust blocking the air intakes. Also, find where the air flows out of the case and feel the temperature with your hand. If it doesn't feel hair-dryer hot, it's probably not a cooling issue.

Well, I haven't opened the case yet anyway, because I'm scared of it. Sean, your power-supply suggestion has merit; today it's run for hours trouble-free, except for shutting down twice while I was installing new printer software. I can't correlate that with other times there were problems, because I can't remember if the disk drive was working extra hard. I don't currently have any other peripherals attached, but it didn't act up like this pre-move when I did have much more hardware. Maybe it's possible the power supply has simply given out. My niece says next time she comes to visit, she'll change the power supply; that was her suggestion also. Maybe that'll fix it. It's good to be related to geeks.

I appreciate all the feedback! Maybe I can finally get this taken care of.