Computer seemingly randomly turning off
 

Hi,

My computer randomly turns off every now and then. It's running Fedora 11.

It's not overheating, I checked that. What log file should I be looking in?

It seems to happen more when Spotify is running under Wine, but it happens when Spotify isn't.

It's just turning straight off, not on and off again.

Any help would be appreciated.

~Callum

Have you seen it turn off, or does it happen when you are "not looking"?
If you have seen it turn off, does it go through any shutdown process, or is it literally like someone pulls the power cord? If so, I would be sure it is hardware related. Perhaps a bad psu. You could try to trigger it by running as many devices as possible simultaneously; cdrom, hdd, usb ports, etc ...

OF all the times it's done it (about 30 times?), It has only done it once when I'm not looking (And I was downloading and on spotify).

It is literally as if someone had pulled the power cable out. Weirdly, it won't turn back on when I press the power button, I have to physically pull the socket out (turning it off doesn't work), and back in again.

I get an error when I boot up saying my hard drive is failing, it says I have failing sectors (Relocated sector count is failing when I click on the icon), has that got anything to do with it?

Thanks for the quick reply :)

~Callum

There are many causes esp. hardware failures but sometimes it's just as simple as the power cord being pulled a little bit and loosened at the back of the PSU.

I've got a spare power cable, both fail :(

Which log file should I be checking?

~Callum

While I think you should ensure you have everything you need from your HDD backed up, I don't believe the HDD is the cause - unless it is drawing too much power and spiking.
I do think this maybe psu related. I have had those exact symptoms a few years ago, where I had to remove the power cord from the back to seemingly "reset" the psu before I could turn it on. I had the advantage of having another machine I could cannibalize to confirm it was psu. It could also be m'board. Certainly one of those trial and error type things to hit. I would focus on hardware though at this point.

I've had my computer on for an hour and it hasn't happened :/

I haven't got a spare computer I can kill (Or a spare computer, for that matter), but I'll keep an eye out for people throwing them away.

~Callum

Oh also ... you haven't taken a a 5 year old computer with a 200W psu and loaded it up with many hdds, dvd roms, more ram, faster cpu, bigger graphics card - effectivley going over the watt rating have you?

I haven't a clue.

A couple years ago (when I didn't know anything about computers), my dad got me an old computer running '98. It broke and so my dad contacted a computer guy to fix it. He got me a *new* computer (with a broken mouse port), and then went bankrupt.

It's small font factor (I have no idea how to actually say it, I don't do hardware), so it hasn't got much stuff in (one HDD, one dvd, 1gb + 256 mb RAM, 2.4GHz CPU, rubbish graphics card)

I can test how many watts it's using, would that help?

~Callum

Actually my graphics card isn't compatible with Linux.

~Callum

Not sure how you are going to test the current draw unless you have some equipment around for that. And, it sounds like you haven't added hardware since you got it, so you can assume it has the hardware rated for the installed psu. I am going back to bad psu as my vote.
The last psu I bought was only around $40 - don't know what your funds are like. And they are easy to remove/install - just remember where all the plugs go. Usually only a screwdriver is needed. Make sure you get the same physical size one (if you have a small form factor PC, you will need to make sure the psu is the same dimensions.) And the wattage label will be written on it somewhere. Just make sure you get the same or higher wattage.

Okay thanks for all your help, I'll let you know what happens :)

~Callum