Pc keeps shutting down - where do i start?

cristoff

cristoff

cristoff

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Joined
8 Nov 2006
Posts
63
For a couple of months now i have been suffering the most random shutdown form my machine. It follows no pattern in terms of when and what app i am using, although i have noticed it does seem to do it often when i am watching streaming football matches. It can go weeks without it happening or it can happen twice in 10 minutes! It just switches off without warning! It is a very sudden thing.

I have checked Event Viewer which offers nothing in terms of error reporting when it happens, i have no hardware conflicts that i can see, i have put everest on my system to monitor temps but can see nothing unusual. I have downloaded all the prevelant updates for my motherboard, CPU etc.

Where do i start? What should i do? It is proper winding me up now, can anone help?

thanks in advance

watto
 
Athlon 4200+ X2 dual core retail kit
MSI motherboard K9N
1 gig of Kingston DDR2 PC2-4200
2 hard drives, the C drive is a Maxtor serial ATA 160g 7200 rpm
My card is a Nvidia Geforce 7800 GT

Whether relevant or not but it is hooked up to a Asus PG191 monitor
 
cristoff said:
it says win power switching power supply model atx-400

maximum output 400w
Click to expand...

that looks the problem to me. your psu is MAX 400w which means the avg power output is less than that. go get a new one.

what do the rest of you guys think?
 
tsj said:
that looks the problem to me. your psu is MAX 400w which means the avg power output is less than that. go get a new one.

what do the rest of you guys think?
Click to expand...

It goes off during the night when all its doing is seeding torrents, nothing stressfull, why would that be so?

what supply do you recommend?
 
cristoff said:
It goes off during the night when all its doing is seeding torrents, nothing stressfull, why would that be so?

what supply do you recommend?
Click to expand...

I had the same problem a while back i was using a 350watt psu and powering 6 hdd's and a p4 with 1gb ram. it kept cutting out on me. i upgraded to 550watt and it worked fine after that
 
Was looking back through my receipts form when i had it built as i remember some issue with the power supply and my motherboard???(i think!!)

On my invoice there is a 20 to 24 pin psu adapter and a rb-511 power splitter UV orange.

Seem to remember it was something to do with it not fitting my motherboard so having to add a lead to make it work. Could this be unhelpful to my problem??
 
pcAnywhere said:
Does sound like your PSU is overheating and then closing down. It doesn't need to be pulling maximum power to overheat, if you have a cheap PSU it will start to get hot pretty quickly...

Get a Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.2 PSU - Black Nickel - it's enough power for your needs, will run cooler and run cheaper (greater efficiency = lower running costs and cooler system).
Click to expand...

isn't that the same output as the one i have at the moment?

is it compatible with my board?
 
Yes and yes.

But it will actually give you 400w of power and not burn itself up doing it.

If you want some more headroom (for example, if you plan on upgrading to 8800 series GPU) then look for a 520 to 600W PSU. Again - don't be fooled by very cheap PSUs claiming huge wattage - the one place where you can't buy cheap and get great performance is a PSU.
 
remove the link to competitor mate, it ll get you in trouble. Also you might want to spend a extra £20 on a decent branded PSU, can save you a lot of headaches.
 
It could be 3 things (usually)

Over Heating (CPU prob)
PSU (either not enough Power OR one of the rails is below the 10% tolerance)

Download something like motherboard monitor/Speed fan etc to check Temps AND the voltage rails
 
ShiWarrior said:
It could be 3 things (usually)

Over Heating (CPU prob)
PSU (either not enough Power OR one of the rails is below the 10% tolerance)

Download something like motherboard monitor/Speed fan etc to check Temps AND the voltage rails
Click to expand...


i use everest and it says
CPU core voltage 1.3
system fan 3500rpm
CPU temp between 35 -39
motherboard 34
 
try motherboard monitor

heres an example :

A64%20at%202700.jpg


the one at the bottom is motherboard monitor

it tells me TEMP and all the VOLTAGE ones i need

3.3v rail
5v rail
12v rail
 
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