Thread: pc shutdown......help please

Originally Posted by PurplePanther

Ok
Clean it out, as I mentionned above.



After you crash, WINDOWS+R and type in eventvwr.msc.
Press enter.
Look through your LOCAL and tell us if you find a BSOD crash or a temperature (dangerous conditions) related logs. This will help us determine what is causing your crashes.

I don't think he saw a BSOD otherwise he would have gotten a handy message on boot detailing the failure. If this didn't happen it's likely a hardware issue. If, for some reason, you suspect a software issue, run msconfig and turn off all non-essential programs to run at startup.

As suggested above clean out as much dust as possible. Make sure the computer is mounted in a place that allows it to breathe (e.g. not shoved inside an enclosed area). At times, I've had hard-to-explain problems if the humidity level got too high so if you are running a humidifier try turning it off. I'm not sure where you live (dunno if yorkshire is a clue or just random :D) but you might consider cooling the room your computer is in if it gets too warm.

Same sort of thing happened to me a while back at first is was happening like yours then it started happening everyday and after some Trial and error i figured out it was the power supply. Intermittent restarts or shutdown could either be the power supply or the memory is failing.
When this was going on with me i never had a BSOD one way for you to find out is if you have another power supply around then run with it for a couple of days and see if it crashes again and if it does then take out all of your memory except one stick then run for a while then add another or just use memtest.

Well hopefully all that makes since random restarts are a pain to figure out whats causing them well that's all i got hope it helps.

Had a similar problem recently check your ram is in properly or not faulty so maybe pull out a stick see if its find if turns of try to take the other ram out and see 90% of the time when a pc keeps shutting of will be related to a ram issue

As for the talk of "removing 1 gig of ram and then running 32 bit they said my machine would run better and only us 64bit if i had 8gig or more ram." that makes no sense. I have run 64bit windows 7 on my machine since i had a mere 2GB of RAM. I find it far better than 32bit. Back to your problem, the major suggestions have already been made, clean it out and monitor the temps. Keep an eye out for components that seem to be heating up faster than usual, and have a look at them, as this may indicate either insufficient cooling or that the part is failing.

I would recommend using a program like RealTemp to monitor your temperatures, so you can get an idea of what is happening with your computer. Also, as people have mentioned, make sure your heatsink and fans are clean of dust. Canned air or one of these Amazon.com: Metro Vacuum ED500 DataVac 500-Watt 0.75-HP Electric Duster: Home Improvement are your friends.

Originally Posted by Neo34

Same sort of thing happened to me a while back at first is was happening like yours then it started happening everyday and after some Trial and error i figured out it was the power supply. Intermittent restarts or shutdown could either be the power supply or the memory is failing.
When this was going on with me i never had a BSOD one way for you to find out is if you have another power supply around then run with it for a couple of days and see if it crashes again and if it does then take out all of your memory except one stick then run for a while then add another or just use memtest.

Well hopefully all that makes since random restarts are a pain to figure out whats causing them well that's all i got hope it helps.

soon as i read the OP this is exactly what i was thinking and my question is what psu do you have model how many amps and watts and rails?

also the metro data vac is great i have one as well and canned air is good also as everyone mentioned try to make sure all heat sinks and even motherboard are cleaned well with some high pressure air.

back to what may cause this issue is 2 things 1cpu temp 2 psu starting to go out if already reaching it limits. i read everyones coments and would have to say that in my experience this almost sounds like a psu issue for sure.

google and run the following
realtemp to monitor your cpu temps
prime 95 as it will stress the cpu and have realtemp open so you can see how high the temps are getting also prime will be stress testing ram also
but for ram only run memtest 86 for about 1-2 hours and see if there is any errors just to rule out ram which i am certain it is not but better safe then sorry.

and as was stated earlier 2GB ram and up is plenty to run 64bit OS esp win7 4GB and up preferred.

so back to what i was thinking is what psu do you have how old is it and what wattage and how many amps on rail or rails combined????

Your problem is one of the most common problem of the world. So do as the others suggested above...

Basics:

1. Clean ur pc using blower(if u don't have, buy one) & small paint brush.....(If ur blower is a cheap/local one, then don't activate it more than 30 seconds at a time, maintain 10 sec gap)
2. Open ur power supply and clean it properly
3. Clean ur RAM using Tissue/cotton/cloth(careful)...(Sometimes I use pure Mobil to do this (Don't do this))

** Take a thin piece of cotton cloth and try to wash (without water/anything) the golden/silver connector...
Best way warp the RAM's corner with the cloth and press the corner hard(don't use too much force and only press in the connector) and move the RAM up and down.

4. Do not use unnecessary programs...Keep ur Hard disk memory & registry clean....
5. If u r rich enough use water-cooling, if not use one way air passing system. use a fan near HDD
6. Don't keep ur pc under direct sunlight....

7. When u think ur processor may go under pressure (while encoding etc), remove unnecessary process from task manager (I don't use gadgets, for me no point in using 7 ultimate>going to change my OS, I use tune up turbo mode, I avoid multitasking as much as possible etc)....

To remove unnecessary file I suggest use Your Uninstaller. And for Defrag-ing ur registry and drives use Tune up...Tune up also has Optimizer, program De-activator etc.......

I use blower every week(My house is beside a road, its a bit dusty) and fully clean PC per 3 months...Its giving an amazing performance...

Hope This may help...And Mobil is a good idea but don't use it...It maybe risky...Use a cleaner....

UPDATE

I forget to mention the most important of all. Your thermal paste may have dried out. Buy a new one and replace it...

There has been a lot of good advice in this thread. But the aggregate totality of it is chaos. The essence of troubleshooting is looking at a situation methodically. Of deductive reasoning to narrow down the list of possibilities. And testing all assumptions.

So you need to examine the information available and then tackle the most likely suspects first. If we just want to poke around in the dark, the possibilities are almost endless. In the end, the problem could prove to be so many things from thermal shutdown, to a bad driver, a failing hard drive, bad power supply, loose or faulty ram, a loose cable, malware or so many other things.

Until we get more information, we are very much in the dark and just making educated guesses so far.