Random Shutting Down Issues

  • Thread starter Famine
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Famine

Famine

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For no reason at all, my PC just suddenly turns itself off. Off off. No shutting down screen, but off.

It doesn't seem to correlate with any activity I'm doing.

Can anyone suggest why it is doing this and what I can do to fix it?
 
Flerbizky
P S U....
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Power Sucking Umblahs!

;)

Probably a PSU problem or possibly overheating. Time the intervals. If your PC has a relatively repeating interval then check the case/processor/video card temperature about 1 minute before the predicted shutdown. Then let it cool off for maybe an hour then restart. Let it run for 1/2 of the predictedi nterval then see if the temperature is significantly different.

That solution saved me a couple of times from frying my system. If overheating isn't the problem, tell us the wattage of your PSU, i'm sure we can find a good one to match for a low price 👍
 
Most definitely not - I upgraded the PSU some months ago for a motherboard upgrade. It is well within its capacity. Nor is it overheating.

There is absolutely no correlation between anything I'm doing and it shutting down. So to answer the question "When does it shut down", I can only say "When it feels like it.". In fact, the only commonality is that Firefox is open, but this is unsurprising because Firefox is ALWAYS open.

My tame IT bod has looked at it and removed a scanner driver. So far it seems to have not shut down - but since this problem first flared up it has happily run for 9 days straight before shutting down again. And sometimes just 30 minutes.
 
In an old laptop i had, the fan was full of dust and a bit loose. It couldn't cool the CPU very well, so after it had been on for long periods of time, it would overheat and just switch off. Check the temp that your CPU is running at.
 
Famine
Nor is it overheating.

since this problem first flared up it has happily run for 9 days straight before shutting down again. And sometimes just 30 minutes.
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Take my word for it. It isn't overheating and it isn't the PSU.
 
Are you sure it's not just happening when you click start > shutdown?

Does it restart or does it just go off?
 
I had my pc randomly shutting down on me once, it was actually resetting but it wasn't going to the shutdown screen. It turned out that I had some kind of worm virus your problem might be similar. I had to re-format my hard drive to get it working again though.
 
I have no viruses or worms. My system is clean.

I think it's a software or hardware conflict. I am now using IE to see if it's Firefox causing the isse (seeing as it shut down again an hour ago, while browsing).
 
It's not. It just shut down using IE, and then it shut down when on the password prompt screen at XP startup.

Je suis tres hacked off.
 
One thing it could be is a loose connection on the motherboard. Have you opened the case up and checked all the molex connectors are firmly in their sockets?

Although this doesn't make sense unless the computer has been violently moved , it's just a thought.
 
Flame-returns
It sounds like some kind of driver conflict to me, I can't think of any reason why firefox would be given permission to reboot the PC.
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In my 8+ years of working as a pro with IT, I've never ever seen a PC or server for that matter - go from "Doing stuff" to the disks spinning down...

I'm stumped....
 
jammyozzy
One thing it could be is a loose connection on the motherboard. Have you opened the case up and checked all the molex connectors are firmly in their sockets?
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Why would it run normally then, up until the moment of death?

jammyozzy
Although this doesn't make sense unless the computer has been violently moved , it's just a thought.
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It's GOING to be violently moved soon...
 
It's GOING to be violently moved soon...
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:lol:

Hmm...assuming it's not overheating or a dodgy PSU, the only other thing I can think of might be a dodgy capacitor on the board. But then, the computer probably wouldn't boot at all. Aah, I dunno. :nervous:
 
I'd try to find another motherboard.. That's my best guess... And I'm probably wrong..

Famine - How much hardware have you shifted trying to narrow the problem down ?.. Graphicscard, soundcard etc.

My first try would be to remove _everything_ unneeded and run the board with one single harddrive, another grahicscard, no soundcard etc.
 
The last piece of hardware installed was... a new motherboard, in July. The last piece of software installed was somewhere around two months ago. Neither coincided with a loss of function. The problem has just suddenly appeared, with no warning.

My system consists of motherboard, graphics card, one floppy drive, one optical drive and on HDD.

I would expect that any conflict would prevent successful boot-up, not allow totally normal operation.
 
Yeah but it's shut down on the XP login screen, so if it IS a driver conflict the drivers are called into use during the system startup, and if thats the case then surely it would shut down at that point evey time.
 
live4speed
Yeah but it's shut down on the XP login screen, so if it IS a driver conflict the drivers are called into use during the system startup, and if thats the case then surely it would shut down at that point evey time.
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Indeed. I've had it turning off (rather than shutting down, I suppose. Shutting down implies going through the shut down process. This just goes "dead" from "perfectly fine") after 9 days' use, 4 days' use, 30 minutes' use, 5 minutes' use and at the login screen.

This is why it's so annoying. There is no commonality between the times it turns off which would allow me to narrow it down in any way.
 

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