Computer Randomly Powers Off

J

jackson18249

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 22, 2004
Messages
236
My comp was working fine until just a few days ago when it would randomly power off. It did this twice after completing the first test on 3dmark01, when opening the newest driver from nvidia, opening up a large .rar file, and most recently, when running memtest. At first, I thought it was just a driver or software issue, but after crashing when running memtest, I have no idea what is wrong. Any suggestions?
 
Can you give us any tempuratures???

maybe high temps?? maybe powe supply going bad??

bad acid??
 
The processor idles at around 50, but I have my computer set to alarm at 60, and shutoff at 65. The alarm has never gone off.

All of the voltages on the power supply seem to be right on. They aren't fluctuating.

It just seems as though when I do something intensive, the comp is shutting itself off.
 
Power supply OR is your power button shorty'ing out some were along the line?
 
sounds to me like proc overheating then the mobo shuts off. you said it happened all after cpu being taxed intensively. Otherwise, the proc may be fine but the mobo or psu was malfunctioning. take the side panels off see how it goes..
 
Until I put some heatsinks on my motherboard's mosfets (and a heatsink on the back of the mobo) my PC would power off as you describe if I overvolted and overclocked too high.

Hope that's of some help.
 
spine said:
Until I put some heatsinks on my motherboard's mosfets (and a heatsink on the back of the mobo) my PC would power off as you describe if I overvolted and overclocked too high.

Hope that's of some help.
Click to expand...


aren't there MOSFETs inside the CPU? :confused:

or are there like Power MOSFETs that are ourside the CPU?
 
Thanks for all the replies. Last week, I did take off my heatsink and reapply thermal paste, so I probably screwed that up a bit. I'll try it over again today and see what happens.
 
Im going to go with the power supply. My comp was doing the same sort of thing ... powering off randomly (that was an old enerMAX supply). It happened only randomly, then eventually the computer just wouldn't power up at all. Well it would for a split second, then turn right off.

I Put in a sexy looking OCZ Modstream power supply and the problem is gone. Also other minor problems such as the computer getting slow after days without a restart or power down, and the second mointor getting a red tinge once in awhile, disapeared with the new PSU.

Bad power can cause a whole lot of problems.
 
Well I just went to reapply the thermal paste, only to discover that I am an idiot. I had put the heatsink on backwards. Luckily it didn't crack the cpu core or anything. It's idling at about 40 C right now and hasn't restarted yet, so hopefully I fixed it.
 
RancidWAnnaRIot said:
aren't there MOSFETs inside the CPU? :confused:

or are there like Power MOSFETs that are ourside the CPU?
Click to expand...
No, they're on the motherboard. They are used to take the power from the power supply and regulate it to the cpu and other things. They get rather hot.


Well anyway, sounds like Jackson has sorted it out. I did a similar thing with my old Swifttech MCX370: I took it apart and putt he springs on the wrong sides making the spring bias wrong. Took me ages to figure it out! duh... ;)
 
I just finished cycling it through memtest, 3dmark, and prime95 for the last few hours and no restarts. Never went above 42 C. Thanks for all of the help guys.
 
spine said:
No, they're on the motherboard. They are used to take the power from the power supply and regulate it to the cpu and other things. They get rather hot.


Well anyway, sounds like Jackson has sorted it out. I did a similar thing with my old Swifttech MCX370: I took it apart and putt he springs on the wrong sides making the spring bias wrong. Took me ages to figure it out! duh... ;)
Click to expand...

that just sounds like a voltage regulator to me lol.. Voltage regulators are made using MOSFETs (and diode/zener diodes, and op amps).. and all modern CPUs are made with MOSFETs... i would assume the MOSFETS in the regulators are POWER MOSFETs.. since they get hot i'm sure thye handle a load of current.. hence.. Power MOSFET

I've notice peopel on the [H]ard tend to think voltage regulators are MOSFEts.. they are not... they are make with MOSFETS, op amps, and diodes.... MOSFETs are in practically 90% of all electronic devices.. including CPUs.. memory.. and much more..
 
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