Hello, I need help bad. My computer just randomly shutdown for no reason today. Then, when I tried to boot it backup, it ran fine for about 10mins, then it completely shutoff again. Next time only about 5 mins, and now only about 1. After I tried this a few times, I went right into the bios after it turned off and checked the tempatures of the CPU and the computer, both were 111F. That isn't too hot is it?

I have a 400WT Powmax powersupply, and the rest of the specs are:
K8T Neo2 mainboard
NVidia GeForce 6800 GT
AMD 3500+ 64 bit socket 939 proccessor
1GB of RAM = two sticks of 512MB PC4000 DRAM in dual channel mode


Bios is newest version as far as I can tell: 3.3

Also, after it shuts off, I have to either unplug the power from the wall, or flip the switch on the power supply before it will start again.

By shut down, I mean it completly turns off instantly with no warning at all. No beeps, no freeze and then shutdown, no delayed turn off, it is immediate!

Help me please!

Overheating problem. No doubt about it. I had this. I cleaned the CPU fan and it was solved. The thing is, the CPU cools down very fast after shutdown and so going into the BIOS to check the temperature afterwards will not help you.

What I did was remove the CPU fan and clean the fins. The fins get clogged up with dust and cooling is very poor even though your fan might be running.

You must clean the CPU fan.

Could also be the power supply overheating (if you have to flip the power switch off and on to get the machine running again).

As Harishankar says, though, it's almost definitely an overheating problem of some kind.

Dave

Ah, yes. ilikejam, you're right.

The PSU fan could also be the problem. On my old machine, the PSU fan kept turning off for some reason. But usually for this kind of overheating problem, you'll get a regular system beep alarm. Depends on your hardware entirely.

Even if the system shuts down due to the first problem as I described, if it is an ATX cabinet, you have to switch the power off and on again.

It could be the powersupply overheating, but I know it isn't the CPU. I had an arctic cooler fan on the CPU, and I thought since that wasn't the factory fan I'd put on the factory fan. After I completly changed the whole cooler to the factory one it still does this, so I really doubt it is the CPU. How do I check to make sure it is the powersupply? I don't have any spares at the moment.

At least some power supplies have a circuit breaker/thermal overload switch in them and circuit breakers do occasionally go bad. When they do, they trip at much lower than their rated current. If you have access to another power supply, I would try swapping them out and see what happens.

I'm not so sure it's overheating -- 110 F is low 40's C, and that's nothing out of the ordinary. I'd suggest looking at the RAM, and running memtest on it to confirm that it's fault-free.

Also, have you made any changes to the system recently, either adding or removing components, and if so, what were those changes? -- J.W.

agreed... maybe if it was over 120-130, that could become a problem... but 40c isn't too bad... over 50 gets bad

good idea. best thing about that software is that it runs before the OS, too!

With RAM problems the computer does not shutdown completely as the OP has posted.

You get random freezes, reboots and the like. Could be the RAM, but the chances are quite slim.

Thanks guys. I bought a new 500W power supply. My guess is that the old one was just a cheep power supply that burnt out, because this new one is running WAY WAY cooler and I haven't had any shutdowns yet. This 500W power supply is just rocking on!

Thanks a bunch for your help!

Thought so. Had to be a power problem. I also have a 500 W PSU and it's quite good.

Best of luck!