System Keeps Shutting Down Problems ?

[thomson]

My system shuts down totally after an hour or two, i think it might be summit either to do with the power supply or the tempreature, but iam not sure.

I can be sitting playing away at games and then the computer just shuts down totally, no warnings no nuffin.

Then all that happens is the blue neon light that usually indicates the system is switched on flash's on/off every couple of seconds, even pressing the on/off button doesnt do anything, the neon keeps flashing and the pc does nuffin, it stays off, only way i can get it to boot back up like i have now is to pull the power out the back then plug back in, then everything seems ok.

this is all very strange, first time ive seen this happen on my system, i dunno whats going on ??

Can someone whos in the know please give help ?

thanks

 

[Jooooles]

im as in the dark as much ( dislexic ) as you but theres a few things id look at like is your cpu over heating ? is your board pushed to the max and over clocking you might need a water cooler.

go into task manager and watch it just before you comp cuts see if any programms start running just before its cuts out.

what you done over the last few days are what did u change before this started its a stupid thing to say but computers normally run ok until we get are hands on em


well mine anyway:santa:

 

[Dutcho]

Put a decent psu it it to start with.

 

[Jooooles]

Put a decent psu it it to start with.

whats one of them Dutcho damm this site is great

 

[Dutcho]

Its the thing your black power cord plugs into A poor or cheap one can cause all kinds of problems as well as not having a big enough wattage for all the hardware yuor trying to run.

 

[Jooooles]

Its the thing your black power cord plugs into A poor or cheap one can cause all kinds of problems as well as not having a big enough wattage for all the hardware yuor trying to run.

ah right one of them lol ill pretend i understand a new power supply case thingy lol

cant u adjust the board power supply with jumpers i built a comp a few year ago but had the jumpers in the wrong place are sommick

never mind ignore me im pished lol

 

[X-Wolf]

@thomson:
Have u checked the shutdown temperature setting in the bios? (might be set too low)
Also check the alarm setting (it really should have beeped before off).

Big gfx cards tend to heat up after a while of use,
and you don't get much warning when these flake out
(perhaps underpowering the gfx card???)

This will be a pain to diagnose.
Basically, anything with a fan should be pulled and tested/replaced.

If u using a cheap brand of memory, try underclocking it slightly,
just to see if it runs more stable (and rules out memory problems).

Have fun ... :silly:

 

[018981967]

Temps.

Get a prog called - Motherboard monitor - through a P2P or somwhere
This will tell you your CPU temp and your case temp.

Google your MB & Chip and find out what they should be running at.

If your CPU temp is way too high, this is the prob. Invest in a good chunky heatsink & Fan.

This was how I solved the exact same problem.

If your case temp is through the roof it could well be your PSU.

good luck.

 

[thomson]

I appreciate all the advice guys but one thing i never mentioned was that this system has been running fine for about 2 years now, all the same hardware etc etc, nuffin changed apart from a new dvd drive, but thats all, ohh, and several reinstalls of windows over the couple of years too.

So, this is a new problem, thats whats making me think summit has went a bit wonky, graphics card, power supply, cpu or summit, its a strange one ??
I have a spare graphics card, so thats a bonus, and also have a couple of old systems sitting doing nuffin that i could take the power supply out of, but if its the cpu or motherboard then iam fecked...

 

[Timbo]

Sounds to me like your PSU effiency has decreased over time and with the addition of the new DVD drive, it's prolly pushed it further than it can go...

I had a PSU once that caused all sorts of issues on my machine, even to the point of me actually thinking my Hard drive was screwed... but I just changed the PSU to a nice 500W (branded of course) with lots of power for both 12V and 5V rails and I was back up and running like nothing had happened.

 

[wobbly]

looks like you need to do a bit of staffwork to ascertain the root cause of the problem.. is summat that I was always being told.

Try looking in the XP system logs (assuming that you are running XP)

My computer/right-clik/manage

computer management console: Event viewer/system

should show errors at around the times of your failures, this will point to a PSU if that is what it is.

The other logs, application, Internet explorer, security, may point to software issues.

If your logging is not running, start them all up and wait for the machine to crash again

On a cautious note, repeated system crashes WILL fook your hard drive, it's only a matter of WHEN it will fail completely, so get a back up done now before you try and fix anything else.

 

[thomson]

looks like you need to do a bit of staffwork to ascertain the root cause of the problem.. is summat that I was always being told.

Try looking in the XP system logs (assuming that you are running XP)

My computer/right-clik/manage

computer management console: Event viewer/system

should show errors at around the times of your failures, this will point to a PSU if that is what it is.

The other logs, application, Internet explorer, security, may point to software issues.

If your logging is not running, start them all up and wait for the machine to crash again

On a cautious note, repeated system crashes WILL fook your hard drive, it's only a matter of WHEN it will fail completely, so get a back up done now before you try and fix anything else.

ok, i waited on it shutting down and then switched back on straight away and checked in computer managment like u suggested, it showed 3 errors, all named source "ATi2mtag" which i believe is the graphics card/driver, eh ??? when i click on them it gives descriptions - CPLIB ::initialization - failed to load the library and the other says I2c return failed.

Also, i timed how long it took last time to shutdown, it took about 2 hours, but this time its still running and its been on about 2 1/2 hours, the first time though it was running under load, i left a game running on it, but this time theres only like the internet web browser running, so please someone correct me if iam wrong, does all these things not point to the graphics card ???

Its a ati 9800se graphics card, iam not overclocking it as such, but i am using a modified driver that enables the 4 hidden pipelines making it run more like a pro than an se, but i dont think thats overclocking it, is it ???
Ive been using modded drivers to activate the 8 pipelines ever since ive had the computer about 2 years ago, so i cant see it being the driver, can you ??

please advise.

 

[wobbly]

at least you are now narrowing the issue down to smaller range of possibles...


Even tho you might have been running the machine with modified drivers for a couple of years, you must also take into account that you have also been installing system and OS updates for the same 2 years.
What worked then is not working now.

Your modified drivers are currently the prime suspect, get the latest versions of these or remove them and revert to standard, to see if this fixes your issues.

You're in a cycle of trial and error now, but at least you saved cash by not having to buy a new PSU.

 

[reggie124]

hey mate

when did u last clean your pc out? how many intake and out take fans you have in your pc case? and also what make is your PSU?

 

[thomson]

hey mate

when did u last clean your pc out? how many intake and out take fans you have in your pc case? and also what make is your PSU?

tried cleaning out the modded drivers and installing unmodded latest one from ati, i even took the card out and gave it a clean etc, but it seems to be getting worse n worse, noticing bad graphical picture break up in games etc, plus system shutting down willy nilly etc, i think all pointing to the graphics card.

So now ive put in my old nvidia geforce 3 titanium 500 card, got it all setup etc, seems stable enough for now, played a pretty graphic intensive driving game and all seemed fine (touch wood), not tried my fifa 07 yet though, will later.

And to answer you reggie, it wasnt that long ago i had a system clear out/format, maybe about couple of months ago mate, and i have three fans, one system fan, cpu fan and the one thats on the graphics card, why ?? also, i dunno the make of the psu, cant see the name, would have to open it all up to check that mate, its a tiny made system, its about 2 years old and was one of the top of the range models then.

Plus see my new thread here too >>> http://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=103975 <<<

:santa:

 

[reggie124]

if you like playing games on your pc...try adding more fans to your pc. cooler your pc is. it will run much faster and stable. clean your cpu fan, if your cpu fan have 4 screws. unscrew them and clean the fins of the heatsink. i am telling you this because i built pc in spare time. and some off the time i get the pc back for repair, and there have the same problem as you. this is what i do first, before i mess around with window setting

 

[thomson]

if you like playing games on your pc...try adding more fans to your pc. cooler your pc is. it will run much faster and stable. clean your cpu fan, if your cpu fan have 4 screws. unscrew them and clean the fins of the heatsink. i am telling you this because i built pc in spare time. and some off the time i get the pc back for repair, and there have the same problem as you. this is what i do first, before i mess around with window setting

yes mate, thanks for yar input, but i aready knew all that , thanks anyway, thats what this forum is all about, help people whetever way possible.....My problem here though is different from just adding another fan or cleaning the heatsinks etc, iam getting total shutdown with no warning or nuffin, no beeps no feckall, but as i said in previous post, iam currently trying this old geforce card i have and its not went off yet :banana: (touch wood), but i aint tried my fifa 07 game on it yet really, so i will be doing that laters on to see how it go's, if its still ok then it looks like i'll be buying a new agp card as the cheap option or possible a new system as the expensive option, but fingers crossed just now this old graphics card keeps me going over festive season, if not then iam thinking about taking the system out the back garden and give it a kicking, lol, well maybe i should try the spare psu before i do that, hehehe :nopity:

 

[thomson]

yes mate, thanks for yar input, but i aready knew all that , thanks anyway, thats what this forum is all about, help people whetever way possible.....My problem here though is different from just adding another fan or cleaning the heatsinks etc, iam getting total shutdown with no warning or nuffin, no beeps no feckall, but as i said in previous post, iam currently trying this old geforce card i have and its not went off yet :banana: (touch wood), but i aint tried my fifa 07 game on it yet really, so i will be doing that laters on to see how it go's, if its still ok then it looks like i'll be buying a new agp card as the cheap option or possible a new system as the expensive option, but fingers crossed just now this old graphics card keeps me going over festive season, if not then iam thinking about taking the system out the back garden and give it a kicking, lol, well maybe i should try the spare psu before i do that, hehehe :nopity:

oh well, i spoke too soon :CRYBABY:

its still shutting down at random and thats with the other graphics card , i thought i was getting lucky there, have a look at the screen shot of the error logged, i booted the system back up after it shut off, and that was the error i got, its strange how i got similar errors for the ati card and now with the nvidia card, summit strange going on, maybe like was mentioned before they aint getting enough power from the power supply or summit, i had a look at the spare power supply i had, but its only 245watts or sumit like that, so that aint no good, eh ???? iam running out of options here , strange too that it can sometimes shut down instantly upon booting up then other times it can stay on for hours or maybe just 5 minutes etc, its intermitant.

I wonder if a clean format and reinstall of windows would help as a last throw of the dice before shelling out money for psu's etc etc ??

 

[thomson]

This is where iam at now, iam typing this message from an old shltty computer i had liying in the room as my main computer wont even boot up at all now , when i press the power on button it kicks into life for about split second then nuffin, just the blue neon light on the power button flashing on/off every few seconds, so i guess now whatever was wrong has just totally quit....

So, I ripped out the power pack and hopefully will get new one tommora to see if thats what the fault is, i noticed on the main plug that plugs into the motherboard from the psu, the 20 pin one, i noticed that 3 of the pins on that were browny kinda burnt lookin, they are at the end of the plug thingy, 1 has a brown & orange wire going into it, the other 2 have orange wires going into them, anyone know if its a big deal or means anything that these pins are kinda brown n burnt lookin ??? I closley looked at the motherboard where that plug go's in but theres no sign of anything burnt there at those pins.

Iam now only hoping & praying that a new power supply will be the answer.

Talking about psu's, the one that was in it has a maximum output of 250w, do you guys think I should get one a little more powerfull, if so, what do you'z recommend and is it safe enough to put a higher output one in it ??
Plus, iam trying to keep the cost down as low as possible, so dont suggest me getting mad expensive psu's cause ive not got the pennies just now to be splashing out large cash, lol.

Appreciate any help/advice a.s.a.p as i will probably go out tommora to buy the psu.
:santa:

 

[waynemcfc]

have you tried cleaning out all your system fans i had the same problem then i opened my case up and cleaned all the fans and it works perfect now .