Unusual Shut-Downs - something overheating?

[gtavcfan]

My PC issue - its a Desktop:
I knd of have an unusual situation with my PC, it shuts down randomly. One low 'beep' while its turning off and the green power light flashes red twice than a second, flashes red twice again. It will keep doing it until I turn off the PC. After that I let it rest for 15 minutes. Then turn back on. No error messages show up. I go to Event Viewer and nothing shows up.

When It happens:
It doesn't matter what I'm doing, surfing net, playing games, watching videos, or practicing my art skills (using Paint Shop Pro), or working on my Pokemon fanfic.

This 'shut down' happens at random. It may happen 15 minutes after turning on the PC, it may happen 9 hours (even when I'm not doing anything and all programs turned off), it may not even happen for weeks. I noticed that it turns off a lot when the weather gets hot, so I'm guessing something is overheating.

Not always, but at times it sound as the fans wants to start spinning and the 'shut down' will happen.

It may also happen when I go to "Start > Shut Down", once the Shutting Windows message comes up, it 'shuts down'. Doesn't finish shutting down, goes straight to black, as if the power cord was unplugged from wall

What I thought was the cuase:
At first I thought it was the thermal compound overheating. Replaced the entire Thermal Compound folling the owner's manual suggestions, I also took the time to remove all dust and debries that had collected everywhere on the PC over the years. I checked all connections and everything seems fine.

PC Location:
PC is located near the window with lots of ventilation and even have my fan on at full speed blowing towards the window, trying to keep area cooler than what the temperature is. The only non PC items I have on top of the PC is just a few small plasitic Pokemon figurines, although I don't think this could be a problem.

Other Stuff I tried:
Tried searching for other solution online and nothing really comes up for Windows computers. Only stuff for the PS3 YLOD & other consoles show up

I also sent this same message to a friend of mine on Facebook (he builds and fixes PC's) I have not heard from him in months.

My PC:
• Windows XP Service Pack 2 (I haven't updated - becuase of the 'rumors' that Sim City 4 may not work on other Window versions),
• 1GB of Ram,
• AMD Athlon 64 Processor,
• 2.19GHz.
[any other info just tell me where to find it]
- I think the PC is about 8 - 10 years old - around when XP first came out, XP Home Edition

I want to try and keep my current PC for as long as possible. Any other suggestion before replacing the PC.

Thanks for taking time to look, or give suggestions.

Before I forget, I did use the "search" here on gtplanet, but non of the results really answered my question/issue.

 

[sesselpupser]

Power supply, maybe. 8-10 year old capacitors are old as capacitors go, and as their capacitance drops (as it does over time) they lose the ability to sufficiently smooth the ripple from the rectifier and so the voltage regulators drop out. I don't know though, might not be. It could be that something in your system starts to draw a little too much power and your capacitors can't handle it.

 

[nick09]

Also the motherboard capacitors could be bad too causing these problems.

 

[gtavcfan]

I'll look into the capacitors, I'll take a picture of them on Saturday. Thanks again for the suggestions.

apologize for not taking the picture today - been busy most of the day. My grandma's friends invited us to party. We showed up very early to help her set up party, my grandma's friend is poor in health - got home late. I'll try and take the pic tomorrow

 

[Infinital-NG]

I'd be willing to bet, that with the age of your system and your AMD processor, more than likely I'd expect to see some scorched/bulging caps by the cpu.

 

[gtavcfan]

First off apologies for being so late -
• Couldn't find the camera
• then when i found it - it was out of batteries
• I also had not logged in for about a week to GTplanet, I signed up for 2 other forums and spent lots of time on them (and yes, Pokemon related again)

Some pics of the motherboard, tried to get the capacitors as best as possible.

Main image

Other close ups

 

[Robin]

Best thing do to if you can is get hold of a spare power supply and try it with that to rule it out.

Also run the PC with the minimum amount of stuff connected to the mobo like RAM etc and see what happens and unplug all internal cables and reconnect them.

I've had a hard freezing PC problem for like a year now and still can't solve it, it is really frustrating when these things happen!