2 days or so ago my PC began shutting down, I can't turn it on again but 1-2 mins later it starts up again by itself. I thought it might be my UBS doing something since there was a red light flashing so it connected it directly to AC, it ran with no problem since. But today it shuts down again, any idea what it could be?

2 days or so ago my PC began shutting down, I can't turn it on again but 1-2 mins later it starts up again by itself. I thought it might be my UBS doing something since there was a red light flashing so it connected it directly to AC, it ran with no problem since. But today it shuts down again, any idea what it could be?

Could be overheating the processor, or a problem with the PSU.

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Have a look at all the power connectors to the motherboard and see if any of them show signs of being burnt/show signs of melting.

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I would have to agree with overheating or possibly melted connectors on the board. Check for both of those things.

If you haven't ever done it, the fins on the heatsink are probably completely clogged with dust and lint/hair.

It could also be that the PSU itself is on its way out. When you can get it to turn on, go into BIOS and see what the reported voltages are. +/- 5% is exceptional, +/- 10% is "within limits." Anything more than 10% is not a good sign (or good quality to begin with).

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

yep dust bunny's overheating system or PSU on it way out

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Thanks, will check it out.

Get something to check those temperatures like SpeedFan or CPUID HWMonitor.

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The Universe is not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine.

SETI@home classic workunits 1,405 CPU time 57,318 hours

The third thing is the RAM. One or more sticks might! be going bad.

So check the overheating first, used SpeedFan or CoreTemp or whatever utility first.

Second, since you will be checking the power connector on the mobo anyway, clean the CPU heatsink.

Third, make boot cd with MemTest86 and run that to check the RAM.

Fourth, if power supply is going bad, not much you can do, you could open it up and check for bulging/leaking electrolytic capacitors. But honestly, if the 1, 2, 3 are all checked out ok, I would just go and buy new power supply, I would not bother opening and checking your old one.

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Did such a thing ever happen to me?

Oh, yes.

Having fun with what I am doing (mostly serious stuff like factoring, etc), I get only a couple of seconds warning at times before my computer shuts down in panic mode.

That is when I run a software monitoring application in the background which is warning me about potential temperature problems and hazards.

I have not always been able to get back to exactly where I left, because not everything I am doing is being saved to disc all the time. It just becomes too much to handle. What I am still having left becomes quite much dealing with at times.

Of course this is not very funny when it happens, but if I had the window or door open and the temperature in the room was not that high, one reason may be that the operating system, or perhaps your anti-virus software thinks it is time for an update of the most recently downloaded software updates and patches, a process which happens more or less automatically.

Possibly a dangerous software threat like a virus or a trojan had been detected at Symantec and it was deemed necessary to patch an update to their registered or licensed users in order to prevent even more disastrous problems.

When this happens, a restart (or reboot) of the machine becomes necessary.

Such things eventually happens at times, whether or not you happen to be protected by the most recent security updates and software patches that are currently available.

The third thing is the RAM. One or more sticks might! be going bad.

The usual symptoms of memory issues are random lockups or reboots. Losing power, then powering back up i'd go for overheating or power supply issues as the others have suggested.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Can't see any burnt stuff on the motherboard, can't see voltages in bios but seems fine according to SIV.

I've ordered a new CPU fan which should come tomorrow, hope that's the problem, I've build a few PCs before but I hate tinkering around inside the box :)

Have been running the new fan for a few days and so far all works great.

The old fan, a Dell fan I think, wasn't full of dust or anything since I've used canned air several times before, but only crunching on GPU the PC would shut down. The PC is almost 5 years old, I'm wondering if your supposed to apply new thermal paste after some years?

Have been running the new fan for a few days and so far all works great.

The old fan, a Dell fan I think, wasn't full of dust or anything since I've used canned air several times before, but only crunching on GPU the PC would shut down. The PC is almost 5 years old, I'm wondering if your supposed to apply new thermal paste after some years?

CPU/GPU temp monitoring program would tell that.

You can see the difference of new and dried paste - remove Your CPU - look at the old paste after removal - apply new paste - tighten the CPU back and let run for a half of an hour - remove immediately after that - look again - compare.

I have had to re-apply the thermal paste for my 3930K once because it had dried. Can't remember when, but I guess about two years ago (and two years after I built my machine. Could have been a year and a half.)

I tried a mixture of a thermal paste and synthetic motor oil. Worked for 3 weeks. I do not recommend. It will not last.

Get the best thermal compound there is.

B.t.w. What is the best?

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To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

Can dried out paste smell like it's burnt? I could smell something and I can't see anything on the motherboard.

B.t.w. What is the best?

Over the years I've found Arctic Silver 5 to be the best.

Cheers.

Can dried out paste smell like it's burnt? I could smell something and I can't see anything on the motherboard.

Sometimes a build of dust will have a burnt like smell to it.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
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The best paste is Arctic Silver 5, but even it will dry out after a few years. Good maintenance suggestion is to just replace your thermal compound about every 3 years. It's cheap enough and only takes a few minutes.

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Linux laptop:
record uptime: 1511d 20h 19m (ended due to the power brick giving-up)

Tom's did a pretty thorough testing of thermal compounds not too long ago. Arctic Silver 5 is included in the round-up - might be of interest to some of you.

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Soli Deo Gloria

Tom's did a pretty thorough testing of thermal compounds not too long ago. Arctic Silver 5 is included in the round-up - might be of interest to some of you.

The only thing that I didn't find in that review was if they gave any of those pastes curing time and as a lot who use AS5 will know that it doesn't start to perform until it's been cured for a good 72hrs @ 24/7 under full load, or the temps will be pretty average until that has happened and frankly that review looks to be the case.

Cheers.

I always enjoyed Dan's thermal paste review.

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Grant
Darwin NT