Help! My computer wont stay running. Shuts down after X amount of time.
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Help! My computer wont stay running. Shuts down after X amount of time.
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!
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.
Last edited by vharishankar; 04-06-2005 at 12:31 AM.
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.
Quote:
(if you have to flip the power switch off and on to get the machine running again).
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.
Last edited by vharishankar; 04-06-2005 at 12:41 AM.
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.
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!
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