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Computer restarting frequently..

M

Meeples

n00b
Joined
Oct 25, 2010
Messages
34
My roommate's computer started acting up as of last night. He was visiting his family over the weekend, and often travels with his PC when doing so. Last night, his parents supposedly noticed some sort of vague burning scent coming from his room, and determined it was the PC, but according to him he was asleep and the computer was still up and running just as good as he left it when he had woken up.

Now that he has returned today, he set up his PC, and it ran fine for a couple of hours. Then, in the midst of playing a game, it just suddenly rebooted with no warning. It continued to do this over the next hour or so, in increasingly short intervals..to the point that it once restarted while still in the middle of starting up. While it was running, I managed to check the temperature of his CPU/GPU, and both seemed fine at 40C and 60C respectively.

I took a look inside, and most things appear to be fine. However...I did notice that the PSU is installed facing downwards, but with very little clearance. The PSU itself is a Corsair 650TX, installed on the bottom of the case...but with less than half an inch of clearance between it and the case. And there is an ozone-esque scent seeming to come from the PSU (albeit lightly), which makes me wonder if something with the PSU might be the issue. If not that, might anyone have suggestions on what to check in an attempt to fix this?

(Edit: I had also managed to check the Event Viewer after a couple of the crashes, and there was no mention of any critical errors or so forth. The only thing I could find was a mention of an unexpected system shutdown.)

OS: Vista 64-bit
CPU: i7-920
GPU: ATI 4970
RAM: 6gb Corsair of...a speed I'm uncertain of.
PSU: Corasir 650TX
 
If the smell is indeed coming from the PSU, time to RMA. That PSU is more or less toast.
 
Would the facing-down fan with such little clearance possibly have been part of the issue? The PC was built for the roommate by MWave about a year and a half ago, and they had done all the setup/installation.
 
Meeples said:
Would the facing-down fan with such little clearance possibly have been part of the issue? The PC was built for the roommate by MWave about a year and a half ago, and they had done all the setup/installation.
Click to expand...

No, not really unless the case didn't have any feet and was placed flat against the floor. What case does he have?
 
He always keeps it atop of something, usually an item akin to a supermarket stocking crate, and the case itself is an Antec 300.
 
Nah, then not really an issue. Probably a PSU that just became defective over time. No biggie. Just RMA it .
 
Thanks for the help, it is muchly appreciated! I'll have him submit an RMA request via Corsair's website.
 
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