Not again...

[The Shutting Downs]

So, for the last day or so, my computer has been randomly shutting down.

Not a full windows shutdown type, but sudden all power gone. It starts up again no problem, but it can be hours between it happening, i think the shortest has been 30 mins.

Any ideas? I hope it's not a power supply issue again, as that what seems to keep going.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Get Coretemp, set it to log to file.

That'll rule out overheating.

[The Shutting Downs]

Well, if I open anything processor heavy, or anything game related even, we hit over 100.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Your heatsink is probably falling off, or the fan is dying check that.

You can kinda bodge it by laying the case on its side (motherboard side down), should lower the temperatures a bit until you can fix whatever's wrong.

[Dog Pants]

Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that. Has your CPU fan been making funny noises recently? Is it spinning?

[The Shutting Downs]

No problems with it at all, no unusual noises or impacts, just started turning off.

Will open it up tomorrow, yay.

[fabyak]

Do you get any blue screens or anything? If it just goes then it might be graphics card, I had a dying graphics card that did just this. In my experience sudden power down tends to be graphics card or PSU. RAM and HDD tend to freeze or BSOD and I honestly can't recall the last time I had a CPU fail

Go here
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/wind ... bleshooter

Follow this, it might just tell you what is dying (worked for me)

[FatherJack]

100°C is hot for anything in a PC in my experience, if that reading is correct. Both CPUs and GPUs idle at 50-60°C, but can get near to 80°C when pushed - I have alerts set at 80°C in my sidebar apps. There's likely some BIOS setting that tells it to shut down at a certain temperature which is worth checking, as it could help to determine if it is truly reaching 100°C as the BIOS reading is usually the more accurate - you can usually just leave it on a BIOS page doing nothing and see what the temp in there does.

If it really is getting that hot, then be thankful that it's saving itself from melting, and what berk said - check, reseat or replace the heatsink*. Afterwards restart from cold in just the BIOS or with coretemp running at startup and make sure the temp isn't rising.


*clean off and replace the magic goo (thermal paste) - for cleaning they say to use isopropyl alcohol (which is an isomer of propanol and similar to propanone aka acetone, ie nail polish remover) and a lint-free cloth, but you can get away with a water-damp cotton bud or kitchen towel - if you want to be really lint-free go for a coffee-felcher - but in any case you don't want to be using much liquid, just enough to help with the cleaning, never so much that you wet the circuit board.

You don't want much thermal paste, more a grain or two of rice than pea-sized, it should squidge out and fill the gap and if it's spilling out you've used too much. It might be worth doing it twice to check it is getting squidged out as your temp problems may be an indicator that the heatsink isn't clamped down tightly enough, but don't use excessive horse - just clipping the heatsink into place should be enough to spread the goo in a thin layer over the metal on both sides.

[fabyak]

Oops, managed to totally miss the bit about the temp. What Berk and FJ said

[The Shutting Downs]

I think I have thermal paste somewhere...

Had a look inside (as in took the cover off with it on) the fan still seems to be going ok, and the sink is quite firmly on, nothing dropping. So I will do FJ's plan next.

Cheers so far, will report back.

[FatherJack]

Grabbing and posting a few pics of the inside and environs while you're in there might be useful for us to see how the airflow's working, as that can lead to unintentional overheating as well. I tend to go for the "powerful enough to suck a golf ball through a hosepipe at the front, then spit it out the back method" which is why my PC sounds like a jet taking off, but many case designs favour a more distributed method where the hot air goes out of the sides and top.

[The Shutting Downs]

Shall do.

My PC is now a cobbled together mess of bits after two died on me in quick succession, one motherboard and one power supply.

I should probably just give up on PC's and get a laptop.

[FatherJack]

Shall do.

My PC is now a cobbled together mess of bits after two died on me in quick succession, one motherboard and one power supply.

I should probably just give up on PC's and get a laptop.

If said laptop goes wrong though, the best advice most can give you is to buy a new one. At least with your cobbled PC you know what all the new bits are, by process of elimination, the mobo and PSU should be good for a while.

A brand-new-everything PC is probably still cheaper than a games-capable laptop, so unless you desire portability, I'd say don't hobble yourself, laptops are always a compromise and the compromise rarely favours gaming.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

ooh, idea!

Run your computer with the side off, once coretemp says it's fucking hot, stick your finger on the heatsink.

If it too is fucking hot, it's probably the fan, if it's cool/cold, the heatsink probably isn't making contact.

[buzzmong]

100c is deathly hot for CPU's. 80 is excessive for CPUs. 55-60 under load is what it should be.

GPU's are a bit more heat friendly and can generally run up to 90-100 without ill effects aside from shortening their lifespan, but you really ideally want them running about 50 under load as well.

Of course, as cool as possible is always the aim as cold silicon is happy silicon.

Currently both of mine run around 30-35, peaking at just over 40 under heavy load.

[The Shutting Downs]

Mine is running 57 as I type this.

I open up a Facebook flash game it starts creeping up. If I don't close the game down before it hits 90, the whole thing freezes until it powers off.

Gaming wise, I don't think I have played any recent PC games in quite a while, I'm happy with much older stuff right now, Terarria and Vampire:Bloodlines are the main ones I'm on, but that's mainly because I rarely buy games when they first come out, or see if it's on the xbox.

I'm guessing the heating is the right problem, watch this space. pictures will follow when I get the paste delivered, my old tube has gone walkabouts.

Mrs TSD says thank you for not just asking me to 'turn it off and on again'

[The Shutting Downs]

So, finally got up the courage to take bits out of the computer and put them back in (I don't have a great track record doing this).

Paste cleaned off, reapplied, back together, computer now running at 40-45, before I reapplied it had stopped going below 80. I think we have a winner, cheers guys.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I'm good.