Computer turns off randomly

[Sillyhed2000]

I came home from uni for the summer holidays a few weeks ago, and my computer tower got shipped down with me, well padded by my bedding. I removed the hard drives and took them in my hand luggage to be extra-careful. Well, I've since recieved it, plugged it in, and it ran fine for about five days. Now, it's turning off randomly and seemingly without cause, as if the power was cut.

 

- All fans are running (CPU, chipset, graphics card).

- All of the above temperatures are stable.

- Disconnected both harddrives and my dvd drive to no avail.

- Removed all PCI cards.

- Unplugged, checked, and replugged all connections.

- Unplugged and reseated RAM and graphics card in different slots.

- Swapped power cable.

 

I know it's not a software issue, because it turns off both in windows and linux, and often does so before it even gets a chance to boot either.

 

It's difficult to say when it first occured. Maybe when I was tweaking my graphics settings in Oblivion. But that never involved overclocking or the like and I can't see how it would have caused this kind of damage.

 

My power supply is 350W, which has always been enough for two hard drives, a dvd drive, my Nvidia 6600GT (AGP), a spare network card, as well as the onboard sound/usb/network. And, as detailed above, I've stripped it right back power-consumption wise, and it still occurs.

 

I'm just at a loss with what else to try. Any recommendations? Cheers.

[SmellyJelly]

Is your computer under warranty? If not, then open it up and make sure everything is still securely connected, though be careful for ESD.

 

Maybe you could try going into the Even Viewer, (Control Panel/ Administrative Tools/ Event Viewer), and look for errors in the system section. I'm not sure what you're going to find, just look at the time when it crashed and see if anything was logged.

[Sillyhed2000]

It now shuts down by the time it gets to the bootloader - it seems to be getting more frequent. So I can't even get into windows to do that.

[Waddy]

You have probably tried this but...

 

Full Adware scan. Full virus scan. Malware...anything like that. Then run a big defrag.

 

I had similar problems a while ago and it fixed it.

[Jim]

I had this exact problem with an old Compaq. It would randomly reboot either when starting Windows or right after POST. I went through some troubleshooting and it wasn't a RAM or CPU problem, and I reformatted Windows to see if it was a software problem. So, I just concluded the motherboard was old and finished and put it in my closet. It's been there ever since.

 

To really know if it isn't a hardware problem, you'd have to switch out the CPU with another working one, same goes for RAM. If it isn't RAM, CPU, or software, it's most likely the motherboard and your PC has met it's age.

 

Although, this could be a powersupply problem as well, but like the other hardware, you'd have to switch it out with another one to properly troubleshoot.

 

Troubleshooting is a pain in the ass, but you're most likely going to have to go through quite a bit of it to see what the problem is, or you're going to have to call it a life for that PC.

Edited November 26, 2008 by Vicehog

[Sillyhed2000]

The power supply was really the only thing left that I could switch out, and that is also worth replacing (DDR1 ram, an AGP graphics card, and a socket 939 cpu are better thrown away). Luckily, that seemed to be the problem - my computer's power supply has seen the full lifespans of at least 2 computers by now. So I can replace that and still sell the whole system as a package when I upgrade.