Computer switches off.........

Hi,
This has been a problem i have been having for awhile, i even brought a new barebones pc to rectify it and i don't know what to do. I am thinking of ebaying the lot!!! I really have had enough....
My first pc athlon 64 3000 (Socket 754)
Ram 1024 pc 3200 (2 sticks 512 Corsair value)
Sapphire radeon 9550
Windows xp
It had plenty of fans, i installed some new ram (512 from pc2700 to pc3200 1024), and a soundcard, and networked it wireless to my husbands pc. My pc began shutting down when playing games, sometimes even on ebay. I checked the temp in bios and it was about 70 so i assumed its a heat problem, so i buy a new heatsink as fan speed a bit low, but not sure, so i upgrade my psu as well to 550w. Anyway this problem continues and i am at a loss, my husband knows a bit about the inside of the pc, he has a look cleans other fans etc, still keeps happening.
We decided maybe its a motherboard thing, so get a barebones Pc from Novatech. And a new 754 motherboard, so as to fix the Atlon 64 at leisure and then my husband can upgrade, to it. (All on our credit card, he can't bear to see me sulking day and night as i can't play my pc)
New pc Athlon 64 3800 (socket 939)
Geforce nvidia 6600 pci e
3 x 512 pc 3200
Windows xp
Being barebones we have to put my hard drive into it (after formatting it), dvd drive and corsair value memory. Turn it on, install all motherbord driver, norton , service pack 2 etc install my games, start playing and it switches off. So i immediately think its psu lead or mains supply lead. We replace both. The pc extension wire is a belkin posh one now. Try again and pc still switches off. So we sulk for a few days trying out other ideas. We decide chip still getting too hot (using sandra, everest and bios as a guide) get a really nice heatsink fan (Evo 120 akasa) as it had a crappy factory one and a hard drive fan, just in case. I just checked it, put on one of my games and it switched off, when i checked cpu temp it was 67.....
I reallly don't know what to do, just configured my husbands pc (athlon 2400, never has any problems with) to broadband as he was networked to mine previously and came straight here.
When i switches off, there is no warning a screen is black. You have to restart it.
Looking forward to your advice.

 

Seems that both pc's had high cpu temps, did you use thermal paste on the heat sinks? [coolers] Are you sure they were installed correctly? Not too many things that will cause the cpu to over heat and shut down. ed

 

Hi,
Yes we did use some thermal paste on the cpu, when we installed the fans (they had instructions). It also happened with the preinstalled heatsink fans. When i spoke to the Novatech technical dept today they said that it was likely to be ram or the hard drive as they are the only things from the original pc in the new barebones. I am going to try with a different hard drive tomorrow (my daughters little 7gb one) and see if it still shuts down.
Is there anything else we should check??

Thanks

 

Try to switch memory too if the hardrive is not a problem. But I think that it is the "CPU" problem. My friend's computer is like that too. It booted for a while and turned off. After switching everything (memory, new fan, power supply, etc), it was the CPU. May be there is electric shortage somewhere. I am afraid I am not much help to you.

 

Hi,
If it is a cpu problem how do i resolve it? The first pc (athlon 64 3000) worked for ages until i updated memory etc. And now with the new cpu? Would it happen to two different cpu's? Maybe something i am not doing right?
Sorry to sound silly but what are stand offs?
Thanks

 

she has a point there. what are chances of two CPUs overheating?

standoffs, lady, are the little gold things to which you screw the motherboard to...

 

Hmmmm I did not have to screw the motherboard to anything, not even any standoffs! It was already done on both pcs. The barebones was built minus hardrive, disc drive and came with just 512 of pc3200 ram 400 ddr. The first pc was built by Tiny (i know a crap company, you live and learn). But it did work for a year. Is there any other electrical things it could be... or am i still looking at testing ram and hard drive. Is there any hard drive checks i could do? I tried check discs within Windows?
All advice appreciated.

 

ok just wanna get something straight...

lady ur first pc was the tiny right? the tiny kept on switching off so u tried troubleshooting. nothing worked so u went and bought ur second pc. now uve taken the hard drive out of the tiny and installed it in the second?

 

not necessarily tim. sometimes you can take a HDD and install to another pc then windows will detect the hardware change and update accordingly. its happend to me before. another way is to uninstall all hardware drivers, then take the HDD to the other pc and install the new hardware drivers...

 

Unfortunately, only Windows 98 or older seems to do that. I think it's a WinXP safety feature. (Hates XP.)

Try the suggested Clean install, or an altered installation, perhaps on a backup drive. I have a second drive in case I need to move stuff over from one computer to another.

 

Hi,
I have checked the ram, it is not that. I used my old harddrive i gave it a clean long format and reinstalled xp and everything else, but it still kept happening. so I brought a new hard drive and tried installing windows and it has just turned off again ( five mins ago). There is nothing in there from the old pc (the tiny one) other than my sound card, could my sound card be causing these problems?? I hope not because if it is , it will have just cost me an absolute fortune! PLEASE HELP

 

I have took out the soundcard and any extra fans (other than heatsink) and it still keeps turning off... It switches off after approx ten minutes??

 

wow, the problem must be deeper than we thought.....

guys, how about the BIOS? do u think thats causing the problem..for example, pc shuts down cos the temp has reached the safety limit causing automatic shutdown...

 

Hi,
I checked in the bios and the shutdown feature is turned off......

 

I think we may have solved it, it has been over half an hour of 'rise and fall' and it has not crashed yet..............
We have put the pc upstairs and it now works??? I think this might be because my upstairs electric runs on a different ring mains. Does anybody know anything about electricity and whether this is why my pc is now working? How could i rectify the problem downstairs? If it is the mains electric why is it just crashing my PC, not my husbands or the tv etc?
I will let you know if it crashes again. Hopefully not!

 

IT HAS TURNED OFF AGAIN..............................
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO NEXT...

 

chuck the PC out the window and get a new one....

only jokin!

anything goes now really...so try leaving the case open and see wat happens....

 

Thats why i got the second pc. I was at the point of never playing my pc again. Now this pc seems to do it. I have tried leaving the case open. Still cuts out. But, i put a temp of 80 in the bios setup for cutting out and it cut out slightly quicker....... I have ran everest and sandra and they seem ok. Though in sandra in the environmental monitor, i have a cpu 1 and a cpu 2, cpu 1 stays constant but cpu 2 is spiking alot is this normal? Motherboard seems ok. How hot should my cpu go to? I have tried three new power supplies, the new 550 w and the 400w that came with the second pc and the 300w that was in my first pc (and changed power leads). I know nothing about voltages... system event viewer, i haven't checked. I will asap. I am going to phone novatech and have a moan at there technical person (if they are open).

Please, any ideas welcome, even crazy ones.

 

Well, you might try switching/subsituting one piece of hardware at a time. I'd start with any hardware that you used with the first system that started shutting down. Try a different monitor, different keyboard. If you have external devices (whether connected as USB or some other way) try just unplugging one of them at a time and seeing what happens. If none of your external devices seem to be the cause then you might begin substituting the stuff inside, again one change at a time, to see if that eliminates the problem. Swap out the graphics card, try a different modem, different CD/DVD drive etc. Last of all, if you have another hard drive and can install your OS, drivers, etc again (or have software that will allow you to clone your current drive to the other one) you can try that.

Not sure how likely it is that any of these is the root of your problem, but it seems to me I once had a Win98 system that acted like yours -- shutting down with no warning -- and it turned out to be a defective monitor or monitor cable. Come to think of it, it may have just been that I had the whole system too close to the wall and the cable was pressing against some stuff I had piled behind the computer and that was causing the monitor plug/cable that goes into the graphics card to not make good firm contact.

Good luck!

 

I got my husband to rebuild the whole thing and it now works fine. I still have no wireless router etc, yet, just haven't got around to it. But i took out the alaska fan 120 (£35) and it seems ok with a mediocre heatsink fan??? had we installed the Alaska wrong? although this was all done well down the line and never done on the first Pc. We will know when we get a chance to rebuild the second Pc, should be this week.
Thank you for all your help and any ideas why it now works (Thank goodness) !!!