Computer randomly shuts down.

Hi guys,
First, thanks a lot for all the help. I've been stuck before and this place has always been fantastic in helping me out. Thanks a lot to everyone who gives up their time for this.

Ok... now, to me:

I play WOW alot myself and recently my comp's been randomly turning off during play.
Now, this wasn't even an issue a mere 4 weeks before, but that's when I was in college. When I transported my PC home, it started acting weird.
After searching around on the forums here and elsewhere I decided that my PSU might be at fault, as I was using an old and rather poorly rated PSU. So, I tried getting a new PSU <Aspire 550W Beast > although that helped make my system slightly more stable, it still shut down. Before, it would shut down even during normal use, now just during load intensive stuff like gameplay.
I've checked my temps and they seem to be all right, but I'm really no expert on the issue. As it stands I don't know what to do now. After doing some more research I think mayhaps the HSF might be screwy. Maybe it got knocked loose or the TIM went sour on me, I don't know. Unfortunately, i'm not cool enough <i.e. technically savy> to try and fiddle w/ that whole mess, so here I stand before you a broken and heartless man who desperately wants to get his priest up to lvl 60.

Thanks for all the help in advance.

p.s. don't let the fake attempt at slinging jargon confuse you, i'm really a n00b... moreover, I also notice that whenever the shut down occurs it seems like one of my harddrives is cutting off. I have two 120g harddrives, and the drive i use for games and the like is the one that cuts off. I tried reformatting it and then reinstalling all the games, but it still shut down <i did this because after it crashed before i formatted a chkdisk came up that said i had bad sectors on the drive, i figured i could just reformat it a bunch to clear up the bad sectors>. Just a side note.

Everest Report:
Sensor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type Winbond W83627THF (ISA 290h)
Motherboard Name Asus P4C800 / P4P800 / P4P8X

Temperatures:
Motherboard 33 °C (91 °F)
CPU 40 °C (104 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 4927 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.52 V
+3.3 V 3.34 V
+5 V 5.11 V
+12 V 12.04 V
+5 V Standby 5.14 V
Debug Info F FF 89 FF
Debug Info T 33 40 208
Debug Info V 61 C6 D1 BE C3 25 11 (03)

CPU Properties:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4
CPU Alias Northwood HyperThreading
CPU Stepping C1
Engineering Sample No
CPUID CPU Name Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06GHz
CPUID Revision 00000F27h

CPU Speed:
CPU Clock 3071.90 MHz (original: 3066 MHz)
CPU Multiplier 23.0x
CPU FSB 133.56 MHz (original: 133 MHz)
Memory Bus 166.95 MHz

CPU Cache:
L1 Trace Cache 12K Instructions
L1 Data Cache 8 KB
L2 Cache 512 KB (On-Die, ECC, ATC, Full-Speed)

Motherboard Properties:
Motherboard ID 63-0703-000010-00101111-042605-I865PE$A0030010_BIOS DATE: 04/26/05 16:46:41 VER: 08.00.09
Motherboard Name Asus P4P800-E Deluxe (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 WiFi, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)

Chipset Properties:
Motherboard Chipset Intel Springdale i865PE
Memory Timings 2.5-3-3-7 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)

SPD Memory Modules:
DIMM1: Corsair VS512MB400 512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (2.5-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz)
DIMM2: Corsair VS512MB400 512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (2.5-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz)

BIOS Properties:
System BIOS Date 04/26/05
Video BIOS Date 05/19/05
DMI BIOS Version 1007.003

Graphics Processor Properties:
Video Adapter nVIDIA GeForce 6600 AGP
GPU Code Name NV43AGP (AGP 8x 10DE / 00F2, Rev A2)
GPU Clock 301 MHz
Memory Clock 250 MHz

 

I had the same problem while playing my games my computer would shut off at times and even sometimes while opening programs ,My cpu read 40-45C and I thaught it has to be a diffrent problem.I gave up on it and sent to be repaired turns out it was my cpu overheating since my fan was not properly touching the cpu.Cpu temp readers can be way off.I would try getting another fan and make sure the fan is on the cpu,Fully!.It could be other problems though.
I would have to throw 85% that its overheating,but try other games to make sure its not just WOW.

 

I've actually checked it w/ other games <HL2>, and some audio processing software.. it still shuts down.. Sometimes just when its sitting idle.. but that's usually after i start the comp up immediately after it shut down during some processor intensive event. I'm inclined to agree that its probably heat related. I really want to know if there's some kind of test i can use to determine this... even if my temp sensors are off. i tried this stress test thing that's supposed to lock up my comp if its overheating.. but its too late at night and i gotta sleep. I'll try it again in the morning.

 

hi sidles1123.
try to run memory check, i think that the trouble is in memory, may be it is overheated, may be one of the memory slots not working properly. In such problems memory one of the main suspected thing.

 

Get some Thermal grease and a new fan,fans go for cheap,but If you cannot get a new fan remove your fan and clean the dust and make sure the faceplate that the fan sits on is letting the fan touch the cpu.
Could be memory to ,but I had the exact,exact same symtoms as you when I had my problem.
The fan could have been pushed away from the cpu or not properly working from moving it when you went to college.

 

yea... i don't know how to do that exactly.. or where to start w/ that really. so, if someone could point me in the right direction i'll start makin moves.


As far as removing the HSF to check how well its in there... that's also another thing im not really sure how to do. I mean... ive read a lot of stuff, I'm just really afraid i might mess something up and then there goes my processor. Anyone know of a step by step guide for that kinda thing? <got a 478 slot p4>

thanks for all the help.
-Sidles

*edit: another thing im wondering about is this.. my fan sometimes goes up to 5000RPM during heavy load stuff, is this perhaps indicative of an improperly situated fan? cause that seems pretty high. But then again, im no expert ive just noticed that other people tend to have much lower RPMs.

 

hi Sidles1123! ok lets get started!
you should download a prog memtest86: http://www.memtest86.com/
on the site you can also read more about diagnostic of memory staff;
then make test and fully scan of your RAM. This prog make some sort of a report where you can see how is you memory working.

Yes, and don't be afraid, you won't spoil nothing. About your fan, some years ago i had a fan which goes up to 6000PRM, so the PRM rate depends on the model of the fan.

 

Hey, sorry I haven't been updating this, but I actually gave my comp over to a friend the other day and he's workin on it for me right now. But, ill pass on the memtest86 advice to him. Anyway, thanks again for the help. I told him what you all advised and he got crackin on it so, I should have this all sorted out, or at least diagnosed by tomorrow. Thanks for all the help!
Cheers!

 

you are welcome