PC diagnosis - Second opinion

MumboJumbo · 6 Oct 2011 at 13:00

Hey, well built my friends pc the other day and its spontaniously completely shutting down and restarting.

Seems a pretty solid case of a PSU problem. Checked by running prime 95 and crashed it in about 5 minutes. Ran furmark to confirm a psu problem and not a cpu/ram problem and it crashed in about 2 minutes.

Any further ideas before I RMA the psu?

cubepusher · 6 Oct 2011 at 13:01

mp260767 · 6 Oct 2011 at 13:20

checked system temps, running with a minimum system ?

MumboJumbo · 6 Oct 2011 at 13:53

Yeah, temps were high for a stock 2500k, coming in at 55 degrees after a few min of prime 95, which was a bit alarming but no where near enough to throttle it.

I don't really feel this could be a ram problem as you'd expect blue screens instead or an os problem.

AlfBaxter · 6 Oct 2011 at 14:18

Memory problems can manifest in all sorts of ways. I would run Memtest86+ to rule out a Windows or driver issue. I'm not sure how much strain that puts on the PSU - I would say not much, so if that crashes the PC too then it is more likely a memory/CPU issue.

Staffy · 6 Oct 2011 at 14:33

Do you have access to another system that you can test the parts in question?

Buchanan0204 · 6 Oct 2011 at 15:08

What make and model is the PSU? Just out of curiosity.

MumboJumbo · 6 Oct 2011 at 15:15

Yeah I have been thinking about running memtest and that but the pc crashes even when just using chrome etc. However I can put the sticks into my pc and see what happens. Unfortunately I can't put my psu into his pc because of the massive amount of time i've spent cable managing it and I don't want to risk putting his dodgy psu into my pc, especially when I'm running 480 sli.

The psu is the gold rated OCZ 850w psu. Can't remember it off the top of my head atm but it's a decent piece of kit. I've had a seasonic £120 600w psu break on me though and took out 2 gpu's while i tryed to figure it out so I've kinda learnt it doesn't matter the make they aren't indestructible.

I'll try his sticks of ram in my pc and see, might have to wait till tomorrow for that though.

Cheers for the input guys.

edscdk · 6 Oct 2011 at 15:18

8igdave said:
Hey, well built my friends pc the other day and its spontaniously completely shutting down and restarting.

one reason to refer friend to a complete ready built system.

if you ran the tests several times your conclusion sounds reasonable, however it could also be mobo.

The only other thing I can think of would be the mobo is shorting on something, considering its going to take several days to get the PSU replaced I'd take the mobo out and run in out of the case jsut to be sure, its unlikly to help but its only a 10 min test...

also try 1 memory module then the other.

Staffy · 6 Oct 2011 at 15:40

That's understandable.
At least you can swap out stuff to try it then eliminate that as being the problem.

My initial thoughts would be psu to be honest. Although it could be any number of things as the system starts to warm up.