PC Shutting down randomly

Hey to everyone here,

I have an issue with my PC atm. In fact, unbelievably, I have the same sort of issue with 2 PC's in my house atm! :cry

My PC is relatively new (new for my standards anyway, perhaps not you guys here). Its about 18 months old roughly.

Basically the PC is shutting down moments (seconds) after I turn it on. Sometimes it lasts upto 30 seconds before it dies, sometimes just 3 seconds or so. Sometimes it may even last minutes.

When it shuts down, it attempts to come back on, then shuts off again. It does this continuously until I use the main power switch on the back of the PC.

The first time this issue came up was a couple of weeks ago whilst I was playing a game. The issue simply went away for about 10 days or so (I played games continuously through these 10 days with no issues at all) and now it is back. Back with a vengeance :confused

I don't know much about PC's so I am at my wits end. I am by no means computer illiterate, I built my last PC myself so I kinda no whats what but compared to you guys here, I know very little I am sure.

My personal opinion on this issue is that is it a CPU heating issue. Perhaps its getting too hot and shutting down. Is there is built in safety feature with Windows or something for this, becuase it actually goes through the shutdown procedure. Does this sound like a possible explanation?

I live with my brother and his PC is doing the exact same thing as mine with one slight difference. My PC (if I am lucky enough for it to reach the desktop) will go through the shutdown procedure before it dies. My brothers PC does not do this. His shuts off like a powercut.

By looking at my CPU temperature in the BIOS settings, I once saw it at 80C which is far too hot isnt it? Having said that, just before I wrote this, I saw it shut down whilst showing 49 degrees, which is within tolerance levels I would have thought. This is what is pretty confusing.

The fan over the CPU works and spins at around 1800 rpm. I don't know what the problem is here as the fan seems to work and work fine.

There is a guy lower down this page with a thread entitled 'pc shutting down'. I basically have the same problem he does. I have it on my own PC and my brothers PC which is a spooky coincidence. :-D

I am thinking of seeing about getting some of that Artic silver stuff, dabbing a splodge of that on the CPU and seeing what happens. If anyone can give me any advice I would seriously appreciate it.

I must also say that I too (like the other chap from his thread) found a dusty powder residue around the motherboard near the CPU fan cradle. It kinda looked like dust but it was not grey it was dark brown. I thought it could be burnt dust (or whatever) but nothing looks burnt at all and there is no odour either.

Why on earth would there be a problem anyway, this PC is easily capable of running the game I am playing, the game is 4 years old and the PC spec is pretty good compared to the requirments?! :cry

Thanks again :wave

Andy

 

80C is too hot at the BIOS stage, yes - way too hot.

Clean the CPU and heatsink thoroughly before adding a tiny spot of Arctic Silver (or w/e your choice is), and spreading it evenly across the CPU die with a credit card or similar, the idea is just to fill any imperfections with a very fine film of compound to allow a good thermal contact with the heatsink.

Check that the heatsink is fully secured and the fan cable is correctly installed before trying to boot.

 

Hey Satrow, yea ty, I will do this tomorrow.

Would you say that with zero thermal solution on the top of the CPU, I am likely to run into trouble with heating issues? Is this stuff really that good?

 

Heck yes, it'll likely reduce temps by 20-30C compared to not using any, it's a must!

 

Not to but in, but i've never heard of windows going through the shutdown sequence because of heat issues. Is it possible your power button is faulty or something? i know thats not a question you could easily answer, but maybe it's getting stuck? one of the settings in the bios, for the power button, is to shutdown when you press it. another is to hold it for 5 seconds and it will immediately shut off. could you have gotten water on it or something? while 80 is hot, most cpu's can operate at that temp, and have a threshold alot higher before shutting themselves off. check your bios settings, there will be something there that you can set for temp limits on the cpu. however this would usually be accompanied by some beeps. hope the thermal compound works, but I fear it is something else.

 

I was workin on a friends laptop here a month or so ago and it was havin the same problem..it was a thermal issue so i replaced the paste and to my knowledge it works fine now

 

Hey fellas,

So i recently used some thermal compound on the cpu/heatsink and it has made no difference to my problem. The PC of late is making it to the desktop, but will shutdown (go through the windows shutdown procedure) not too long after that.

Thanks for throwing up the idea that the power button could be faulty, thesmokingun. This is not something I had considered but it would explain the problem for sure. In a way, I wish it was the problem. At least I would know.

I am going to reinstall windows after I post this, just to eliminate that. I dont think it will work but I dont care, I must attempt something for the day.

 

So I just had my PC returned from repair yesterday and 'thesmokingun' nailed it. It was a faulty power switch. Thesmokingun geeked it till it mhz!

Thank you to all who posted in my thread with possible answers, much appreciated