Computer shutting down by itself.

[108]

My computer shuts down without warning. And when I say 'shuts down' it doesn't go though a shut down screen sequence, the power just goes out. It used to do this now and again a month ago, but recently, its been doing it all the time. I would boot up my PC and leave it idle, and in two minutes it would go off.

After the computer would fail, the power switch on the case wouldn't activate unless I first unplugged the power cord from the back of the PC and then re-plugged it in. I figured thats because it needs to drain out the remaining power stored within the resistors/transistors/whatever?

I'm pretty sure its not a software thing because once I went browsing through the BIOS to make sure I hadn't fucked around with anything bad, but it shut off while I was in the BOIS as well.

Friends have mentioned that it may be a malfunctioning power box, bad connections, or over heating. Fans all working properly, dust vacuumed out, air circulation OK. Don't think its the heat.

Probably the power box?

[Grumblefish]

I've had that problem, and it was because of heat. Mind you, I still have the computer, and the heat problem is there because I busted the processor retainer and had to fit stuff to the motherboard with tissue paper and sticky tape. I upgraded to glue recently instead of tape though, and I took it out of the case. It doesn't overheat anymore.

I think the best way for you to figure out whether or not it is a heat issue is to download some sort of temperature measuring software.

[108]

OK, will do. Too sleepy to look for software now, I'll check it out when I have time. Thanks for that.

[wolfpac181]

Might be OH like Grumble said.
Or maybe a short in the board.

I had a MSI board that played great for months, then windows started blacking out like yours, next was the PS blew out.... After blowing 3 power supplies, I replaced the MoBo..... now all works great:)

Get something like asus-probe or sisoft to moniter the heat, and current going through it all.

[Asmodeus]

If it shoutdown in bios, it s hardware problem.

First, check for overheat. Next time it shuts off, unplug right away and stick your finger on the cpu heatsink, is it blazingly hot?

Plu it back in and start the computer up, is the cpu fan spinning? put you hand over it to feel the airflow, is it blowing?

Check for the chipset fans spinning as well, of course, this means you shoudl have trhe side panel off your case.

if all seems ok so far, pt a desk fan in front of the open case area and have teh fan blow in. does it last longer then?

if so, its overheat. check your cpu cooler seating and such. with these bigger heatsinks, a decent jolt has been known to dislodge them

if you still have the problems, grab one of those monitoring usilities that lets you see temp (if you cant in bios) and also check your voltage levels on your 5, 3.3 and 12v rails with the same utility or in bios if possible. they shouldn't deviate away from 12, 5 * 3.3 by more than 0.3volts. at most, and definitely not more than 0.2 below. sit there and watch it and see if its not somethign turning on post boot thats killing the voltage.

after that, if no joy, start unplugging all your power leads and plug them back in after a quick inspection for dirt (the vibrations can some times work them loose) and if not, the final loose connection test, start it up, then give teh sides and top of the case 2-3 good whacks, if it shuts off, theres a loose wire somewhere, or loose cpu. look around agian.

take out all but one memory chip and repeat the 'how long will it run' test. if that works, start putting chips back in until it fails, then replace the offending chip.

after that, check your memory settings, drive them a bit less and repeat tests.

underclock (yes UNDER) the cpu and repeat test.

if that all fails, id guess you have a bad mobo, beg borrow steal another one and try again.

hope you didnt get this far, since im out of ideas for now.

[Pirate]

Im with asmo on this one, but 9 cases out of 10 its your ram that is faulty so do that first.

Computers that overhear usually become unstable and you'll find your machine crashing before is shuts down.. and when it shuts down from overheating it means some damage has been done, which again makes me think its the RAM.

[108]

Last night I hauled the computer around to begin tinkering with it but now it lasts a good 5 seconds before it shuts down. So there go all my software-monitoing options. I starting replacing RAM like Pirate and Asmo advised, but no go. I went around un-plugging and replacing stuff from other spare computers, but still no good.

So I decided to take this oportuinity to upgrade my system. A new motherboard, CPU, maybe a new case and video card. I'm going on holiday for all of December so it'll have to wait untill the new year. If I still have any money left, that is.

Oh, and thanks anyway for the suggestions.

[junglebunny]

I used to have that problem so I just leave the cover off now and its been ok for months now. Toddy (a welsh geek) fixed his by putting sewing machine oil on the fan (take it off first)

[imp]

Faulty capacitors will also cause your machine to restart. Open the case up and see if you can see if any of the capacitors are buldging or leaking. If so you may need a new motherboard.

Trust me. You'll know a faulty one when you see it :)

[108]

Originally posted by imp
Open the case up and see if you can see if any of the capacitors are buldging or leaking. If so you may need a new motherboard.

OK, thats just scary. I'm not going to get a face-full of acid am I?

[imp]

Originally posted by 108
OK, thats just scary. I'm not going to get a face-full of acid am I?

No definetly not. You'll be ok. Just whip off the case and have a look. Usually a case of the liquid inside the capacitor being dodgy or maybe it's just been positioned way too close to the power supply.

[Asmodeus]

true true, i forgot about that, since there was that rash of mobos going tits up due to dodgy 3rd party caps

[MisterBishi]

My Asus board was killing the power after a few seconds when I used the heatsink I was using on my Athlon 800 with my new Athlon XP 2500.

Got a better heatsink and its all good.

[Salted_Chipmunk]

Happened to me on every computer i have had, it was either the power supply or the ram that had fucked itself, majority of the time its been the power supply.

[MisterBishi]

I've never known a PC power down due to bad memory, normally you just get an insane system beep that spells out "Fucking bad news" in a strange variation of morse code where one long continuous beep means "fucking bad news".

[Asmodeus]

i've had shutdowns fromemory before. It wasn't seated perfectly secure and also seemed a slight bit thin on teh PCB so it went in pretty easy but if bumped a little (the computer itself) it would reboot like you pulled the plug and jammed it back in. after a bit of searching, i reseated it and later taped it down as a brace and had no problems since then.

definitely try the heatsink test tho.. if it shuts down after 5-10 seconds, feel the heatsink, if its real hot, theres a definite problem source


you're not doing something wierd like plugging it into 220 while the PS is set on 110, are you?

[108]

I've never known a PC power down due to bad memory, normally you just get an insane system beep that spells out "Fucking bad news" in a strange variation of morse code where one long continuous beep means "fucking bad news".

Yeah that's what happens in my experience when the memory is screwed or isnt stuck in right. DOesn't happen here though.

THe heatsink is cool, don't know what the hell is wrong with it. It's kind of a a non-issue now since I've resolved to upgrade and change the major suspects.

It's only an Athalon 1 gig. GOt it when it just came out and was big news, but a mere two or three hundred now will pay for a new motherboard & CPU that will be a major improvement.

[Bostonmess]

I'm shutting down randomly, been up and running for about 36 hours or so and no problems. As soon as I go to burn a CD it shutsdown, power off, no warning. Thought I'd got rid of this, it seemed to shut down on my G drive while scanning it for whatever. A friend suggested a bad sector, Chkdsk found nothing but WTH I formatted anyway and haven't had the problem again, until now.

I was thinking power supply, but it's ok running for ages. I'm presuming it needs an extra power boost when it does the burn/scan thing and that might be the problem.

Any other ideas apart from the aforementioned?

Gonna do a scan of my drives and see if it can handle it.

I've got some ASUS crap board in, 512 ram, an xp2000, G4ti200.

[dozer]

i have the same problem at the moment, and its on a laptop.

i can only think its either the ram, hard drive or overheating.

it only does it when under load, things like 5mins into need for speed or gettin busy with lots of progs.

software scans dont turn up anything.

[wolfpac181]

Bad RAM???

been dealing with this issue on a cisco router with some buffer memory. once it hits one of the bad chips, reboots. So this comes to mind.

[Bostonmess]

Well I've done the scan of the drives from a boot and it worked ok. Power supply is about 3 or 4 year old and I've never vacuumed it :D. Looks like I'm gonna get a new one, can always use it for a spare if it doesn't cure it.

Dozer mine seems ok under heavy CPU load, so that's stumped me then:)

Might try burning at a slower speed, or just give it a go in the morning. Good luck.

Burnt a CD yesterday after PC had been on all day and it worked fine though :confused:

[Edit] Ignore that bollox, it shut down burning at 2x. Looks like it is the CPU overheating after all, I've probably set it on the lowest temp in the BIOS. Anyway I've upped the RPMs on my cheezy fan and everythings going ok. Currently burning at 4x. Just sounds like a helicopter landing in the room though :fuckin:

[ersatz]

quoth Dozer
i have the same problem at the moment, and its on a laptop.

I've got a reasonably nice HP Omnibook XE3 (<1GHz but has TV out & DVD) which does the same, the fan at the rear corner doesn't spin so that's definitely it. Any dodgy fans in yours? Mine will gladly tick over for a few hours when surfing the web, but play a game or watch a video and it shuts down in less than half an hour (around 23 minutes, so can still watch episodes). It's a prick since it's out of warranty, so need to find my soldering mate and a replacement fan. Any ideas on where to source a cheap fan from?

[Al]

Boston, you might wanna spring for a new heatsink / fan combo. I had a problem with overheating on an older pc and this solved the problem for bugger all.

Regarding power, when my old power supply was on the way out there were occasions when it couldn't seem to power my pc up... So if you're not completely sure it's the cpu you might want to check that.

Good luck.

[Drakin]

Your both running amd chips, i had the same issue, the fan/heatsink combo they sell with the chips is shithouse.

Go out and buy a new heatsink/fan/paste combo and apply it.

Although so saying if you have lived with the problem for too long there might nothing (short of replacing chip/mb/memory) you can do.

AMD = HOT.

[Yuru]

Originally posted by Drakin
Go out and buy a new heatsink/fan/paste combo and apply it.

Heh. "Apply the paste."

[junglebunny]

Replace the fan or take the cover off. In warm climates Cheap fans , when they stop working, cause overheating - or if you got a kick ass processor. Sewing machine oil on the bearings usually work (yes take it off first). I couldn't find any oil so i leave the cover off and have a standing fan.

[dozer]

i dug up a thread about a member who fixed their laptop with some arctic paste on the heatsink so ill give that a try this weekend.

due to the whole hp pwns compaq thing they have taken down their assembly manuals so it looks like ill be flying blind.

[Bostonmess]

Got some paste on and I've got a big fan that has a dial attached :D (cheeeezzzzzyyyy) so you can increase the RPM. Thing is it's noisy when you turn it up so I only ever run it at the lowest speed.

Don't put too much paste on (like don't think "It would be shame to waste the rest of the packet, I might as well use it all"), it gets in the pins and fucks the job right up (Yes that's from personal experience.) :D

[Fuzzy Dice]

I used to have an overheating issue, but it would give me bluescreens instead of a solid crash. Turns out it was my vidcard, as it does not have a fan, merely a big fuck-off heat sink. One slot fan later, problem solved. If you're running muliple fans, don't forget to make sure that one blows in and one blows out.

Oh, and look for things like....oh let's say the pedals for a usb steering wheel sitting against your powerbar, and when you get excited and jam on the gas, you shut your system down. Friend of mine did that. He thought it was his vidcard and eventually went out and bought a new one.....

[Afta Image]

108, did you just end up upgrading the machine?

The cap is a good check, so many MOBO and shit like that have been effected by them, (not just pc's, routers and other products too)...

Also, It could be overheating in the sens the fan is not properly cooling or I have seen a few where the PSU (next to the CPU) has its fan busted (usually dirt) and the PSU gets hot reall fast causing the CPU to get hot, hence the heat causes an instant shut down as appose the usualy locking/errorcodes.

Thosugh I suspect the caps from your description.

Let us know how you went...