My Computer Shuts off Randomly

[sanka]

Its really weird. . . My computer will shut off randomly. Sometimes at startup, and sometimes after like when playing a game. Is this a cooling problem? My specs are in my sig except its a different hard drive. I know intel CPUs shut down if they becomet oo hot to avoid damage. Could that be it? And what could I do to help cool my computer? I have a CPU Fan (duh), PSU Fan (Duh again), an exhaust fan near the PSU and CPU and an intake fan on the side of the case.

 

[Zanarias]

See if the heatsink is still good...may be defective or something, causing it to overheat

 

[sanka]

See if the heatsink is still good...may be defective or something, causing it to overheat

How would I go about checking that?

Also, I'm going to microcenter today for something else. . . Is it worth my money to pick up a fan or something?

 

[mammikoura]

check the temps, that's the easiest way to know if it's an overheating issue.

 

[Cabbs]

Look for dust on the heatsink, if there is anything, use some compressed air to blow it off, or an old tooth brush or something. I would check for spyware/viruses because they can do weird things to your pc.

 

[sanka]

Its a new PC. I built it yesterday and installed XP yesterday as well. It isn't spyware or viruses or dust. The CPU heatsink is room temperature. . . but the heatsink on the motherboard is around mid 90s F and the GPU is really hot too. Any tips on how to cool those down?

 

[Cabbs]

Mid 90's fahrenheit is fine, It doesn't sound like it's an overheating problem. Is your memory voltage set to what your ram is supposed to be at? Because 965 chipsets will have problems with ram that operates above 1.8v until you raise the ram voltage.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

SOunds like your cooling is ok. A good way to test is to double check your BIOS for the PC Health. It has temp readouts there. ALso, if you touch the heatsink and if it burns you to the touch, that's a problem. Do those first before buying anything. ALso, since it's an Nvidia chipset--go to the Nvidia control panel and check the temp of your GPU too. Those things should be fine up to 110-115 degrees C.

 

[dragonfly]

I just fixed this problem myself this morning on my computer. After a year of having the pc randomnly restart, after reinstalling the OS and everything, the pc took a crap on me. We cleaned the fans out and such, still restarted randomnly and sometimes even wouldn't boot up, ended up being bad RAM on our 256 stick. So I suggest its bad RAM. I never would have thought it to have been on this pc but thats what it was alright. Took it out and the pc is back to "new" again after making a few changes.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

RAM trouble. Man, that thing ruins everything. Yeah, that's a possibility too--big time possibility. We had the same problem at work now that I think of it. Forgot about that. A contractor came out and did a memtest on it because the PC kept rebooting at random. Replaced all the memory sticks and it ran beautiful. The thing is, his PC is brand spanking new. Whew, that must suck it was a faulty RAM.