Help identifying a problem please

IggyStooge · 25 Feb 2015 at 14:25

Hello guys,

Turned the pc on this morning and all was fine until suddenly it just shut off without warning. It restarted automatically and then shut off again. After restarting again I was able to use it for maybe five minutes before it shut off again. It continued to shut off and restart a few more time so I held the power button to switch off completely. Now when I come to switch it on it comes on long enough to make the fans spin and then it shuts off and keeps doing this constantly. I had a new sound card on Saturday so immediately I thought it was that but I've taken it out and the problem remains.

So here I am in the hope you clever folk can assist me. What can I try first to narrow down the cause?

Thank you

Iggystooge

sweols · 25 Feb 2015 at 15:42

All cables properly connected?

Can any beeps be heard?

IggyStooge · 25 Feb 2015 at 16:01

I just checked all the cables (didn't notice any loose) and re-connected the pc and so far its stayed on. Now to put the sound card back. I hope its fixed, fingers crossed. Thanks sweols.

sweols · 25 Feb 2015 at 16:13

Brilliant, hope it keeps that way!

ED209 · 25 Feb 2015 at 16:17

run memtest on the memory and make sure they all pass ok

Quartz · 25 Feb 2015 at 16:18

I had these very same symptoms and it was the CPU overheating - the CPU cooler was not making contact.

IggyStooge · 25 Feb 2015 at 17:10

Unfortunately the pc has just shut down and restarted repeatedly. Id rebooted to run memtest but didn't get to run it. Now after having the pc unplugged for about 5 minutes I switched back on and its working again.

I was about to clean the cpu fan and heatsink cos they are a bit clogged but I couldn't get the plastic fan part off without moving the entire heatsink and I wasn't sure if I took the whole thing off I would need to re apply thermal paste (I don't have any) so I didn't bother taking it off.

Quartz · 25 Feb 2015 at 17:24

IggyStooge said:
Now after having the pc unplugged for about 5 minutes I switched back on and its working again.

I reckon either your CPU is overheating or you have something else getting hot and failing. Does the fan on your CPU cooler work?

IggyStooge · 25 Feb 2015 at 20:43

The CPU fan is working fine. I've installed ASUS probe and that reports the CPU temp as 50ºC running a couple of scans, went down to 36 ºC after. Motherboard is 35ºC. It wouldn't be the Graphics Card would it? I ask because I have had it freeze up and the screen went kind of scrambled in a couple of games recently but I wasn't playing games when the PC shut down today.