I got my desktop back early this week (hooray!) and there was nothing wrong with it. Well, nothing that a thorough cleaning wouldn't cure. Turns out that my desktop had a great deal of dust built up in it, which was causing it to overheat and turn itself off frequently. I thought there was some problem with the power supply or the motherboard. The real answer just wasn't that complicated..LOL
The trip to the computer repair shop wasn't entirely wasted, as I had 2 GB of additional RAM installed, which was sorely needed, and they completely blew all of the dust out of the machine.
When I asked about how I could maintain my machine myself, (I'd always heard that you shouldn't open your computer case if you don't have a clue about what you're doing because you could accidentally fry your chips or motherboard from static electricity), I learned that it's not that difficult. All you have to do is to ground yourself by touching a metal piece on the computer (for me that's the case) after you power down the machine and before you open it. That should discharge all the static electricity.
Once you open the case, put a pencil in the fan so it doesn't move (can create another static charge if it blows from the force of the can of air) and then get a can of air (which is also good to freeze locks to break them if you spray it upside down, as seen a recent episode of one of my fav shows, Burn Notice <g>) and spray it inside the machine to blow out all of the dust. You need to do this about once a year.
Simple
solution. Painful lesson. Live and learn. 
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