My bosses PC randomly switching off

torN · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:14

Hey guys, since january my bosses PC randomly switches itself off. I first thought it was overheating. I went round there and as soon as windows booted up it switched off. I cracked open the case and no dust,i checked the fans, they were fine, booted into bios and checked temps, they were all fine. The random switch offs can happen as soon as the pc turns on, or its fine for 2 hours or so and then does it.

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8ghz
1gb Ram
Asus mobo (not sure which one)
Asus Extreme AX550 series ATi gfx card
WD 80gb Sata
Win Xp Sp2

Ive tried reseting the CMOS and loading default settings in the BIOS but it still does it. I checked all the cabling inside to make sure everything is in the right place and its fine. Im just stumped on what it could be?

bob055 · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:15

virus maybe ?

Beerbaron · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:19

maybe check the event log

bledd · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:42

RAM
PSU
Hard drive
Graphics Card
CPU
Motherboard

that's the order I'd check them in

torN · 15 Apr 2009 at 12:59

Beerbaron said:
maybe check the event log

I will do that next time, however i dont have the computer to hand

errata · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:20

as bledd but recheck all the physical connections first, make sure theres no foreign bodies (loose screws seem to recur), capacitors with blown tops or resistors hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

unplug and plug back the various connectors a few times to make sure they are all sound seated and not oxidised

amd cooler retention is better than intel push pins but check thats sound as well

torN · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:24

I think its in need of a reformat and fresh install of Xp (cough legit version cough)

split · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:32

I had one that did this.
I checked all the usual suspects like heat etc but that was OK.
It then becomes a nightmare, and I was thinking motherboard (MSI Neo 2 soclet 939).
To cut a long story short I picked up mobo / chip / cooler / ram in the for sale forum here for £100 and fitted that instead.
Yes I had to get a graphics card also but I ended up with a low end dual core conroe cpu etc and it works.

What I'm saying....once stuff gets old its often just as easy to get something that works and is newer that messing with old second hand stuff.
Time = money etc.

TheMightyCad · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:37

Funnily enough my PC was doing the same and after a bit of looking about on the Asus forums, it seems so have others.

I bet it's the Asus A8V board (mines is the deluxe model).

I have tried everything and still nothing. It has gone beyond the rebooting now and noe the PC boots up but there is no signal going to the mouse, keyboard or monitor.

It seems particularly strange to me that this model of board is going down at pretty much the same time with many different people.

torN · 15 Apr 2009 at 13:49

TheMightyCad said:
Funnily enough my PC was doing the same and after a bit of looking about on the Asus forums, it seems so have others.

I bet it's the Asus A8V board (mines is the deluxe model).

I have tried everything and still nothing. It has gone beyond the rebooting now and noe the PC boots up but there is no signal going to the mouse, keyboard or monitor.

It seems particularly strange to me that this model of board is going down at pretty much the same time with many different people.

Yes thats the board! Looks just a mobo change then?

Mikeey44 · 15 Apr 2009 at 15:16

run AVG free edition from download.com

Jay662 · 15 Apr 2009 at 16:17

leave the system on the bios for a couple of hours.

Disable automatic restart, chance it could be a BSOD and you aren't catching the code as it restarts.

how many memory modules are there? if more than two remove one and test each at a time.

try another hdd?

Bios update?

Load defaults on bios if possible