How do i determine cause of PC crash?

[diomedes]

Had this problem recently, but usually it's provoked by a specific cause (running many application and then plugging in my iphone with the itunes program running at same time). So i learned to avoid that.

Anyway, it just crashed on me, completely unprovoked (from what i can tell), and i'd like to know why. I've had to start and turn off the pc a few times today to look at the internals and what not, but i changed absolutely nothing.

How can i figure out why it suddenly turned off on me?

running on xp btw

 

[joelm3103]

It is just shutting down completely or have you experienced any BSOD?

 

[diomedes]

What's BSOD?
It shut down suddenly, and restarted on it's own. When it rebooted everything was ok and nothing bad happened.

 

[joelm3103]

BSOD = Blue Screen Of Death. After the reboot, everything works normal? No errors after?

 

[Slaymate]

When a PC just suddenly turns itself off it's usually heat related or a power supply going out.

Download and run Hardware Monitor. Let it run for a few minutes and post a screenshot.
HW Monitor

 

[diomedes]

ok here's the report:

 

[Slaymate]

Do you have any extra thermal paste? You should try removing the cpu heatsink. Clean it's base and the top of the cpu with rubbing alcohol. While your allowing the cpu to throughly dry, clean the dust and any build-up off the heatsink itself. Re-apply a new clean layer of thermal paste to your cpu. Re-attach the heatsink to the cpu. Plug the cpu fan back into the power header on the motherboard. Check your temperatures again.

If you don't have any paste get some. Don't try to run the PC without any paste.
Newegg.com - Tuniq TX-2 Cooling Thermal Compound - Thermal Compound / Grease

 

[diomedes]

So wait, my pc is overheating? That's a bit of a surprise, since this has not been generally an issue. That one once today made me think 2ce though, since it came out of nowhere. The other guys that happened recently were due to me being careless and running too much stuff.

Sure, i'll grab the stuff when i can, but i have no idea how to apply it, and no idea what a heatsink is.

 

[Slaymate]

Well according to your screenshot above the cores of your cpu are running at 51C to 53C and I'm assuming the PC is basically at an idle. That is hot for stock speeds at an idle. At Full Load your Temps are probably up in the 60's or higher. I would expect these types of temperatures if you were overclocking.