PC keeps shutting off completely

Computer Forum Power Supplies and UPS's
1

Hi all, recently (since i installed vista on a different hard drive and removed it after a week >< ) my computer has been shutting down completely, while playing games. It has done it numerous times in guild wars and twice in Counter Strike Source. When I did have vista on temporarily, it kept shutting down randomly, or when i tried to play games such as source on that partition, and now its doing it on my XP part.

I have tried:

Formatting and reinstalling XP completely

Removing unnecessary drives such as my 2nd hard drive 80 gig maxtor

My power supply is still a cheap 500 Watts Sumvision one, but its been fine for ages. Does anyone know if its down to my power supply or possibly another component?

Any help much appreciated :smiley:

cheers

2

I take it nobody is ever going to respond here …

3

That is really the first place you need to check…

You are saying like my car was working fine from ages so i doubt it will go bad ..Another example..HDD’s can die anytime..You cannot say if smthing was working will work for always…:ohah:
Another thing you can check is the memory of your computer…Rum Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool to check and see the RAM errors..

4

[QUOTE=Karan]
That is really the first place you need to check…
[/QUOTE]
yeah, first check the PSU but also check to see if anything is overheating[ot]they are the first things to check[/ot]BTW: check out Speedfan (to help you trace any overheating)

5

Yup…if it’s not the temperatures, then a new PSU would be where to invest some cash.

6

right, i have done memtest 86 for 8 hours, no errors, prime95 for 12 hours, no errors, as for speedfan, all my temperatures are 38 degrees C or lower, i dont quite know what my gfx card is running at. It doesnt feel too hot when i touch it seconds after the thing powers down completely. I even added a 12cm case fan next to the card, so i have an 80mm intake which goes to cpu and gfx, and the 120mm takes out on the side.

As for my PSu, I am getting one regardless of whether this solves the problem or not, because I just need one in general (Off topic: is the coolermaster iGREEN 600Watts any good?)

I am still getting shut downs in games :frowning: I’m not sure if i can replace my
inno3d 6600 AGP cooler as its a completely different design to other ones and doesnt have the correct holes for the HSI heatsink and seperate GPu cooler
:frowning: . Anyway 2 weeks I am buying an iGREEN from coolermaster 600Watt version, unless you lot think its a bad choice

I also stripped down the PC completely and hoovered all the fans and didnt find any spider webs or anything on the motherboard, also added more thermal grease to the CPu

I stopped overclocking my CPu and set all voltage settings to default or auto, still, no change. Its been fine for about 2 years and now all this is happening. Maybe someone has actually experienced this?

thanks all

7

I haven’t seen much in the way of notice, but I did remember this review rating it pretty well. Additionally, they did a proper review (very few sites do, and they’re listed in the PSU sticky), so while I’ve not used CoolerMaster PSU’s, it looks like it’s up to snuff.

A few suggested brands if you’re trying to keep this on the cheap:

FSP (Fortron Source)
Sparkle (another FSP brand)
Hiper

Looking at what you have, anything 450+ from these brands should do the job and be easy on the wallet. Actually, if you find a Fortron/FSP AX400, that would be the one 400W that I’d recommend.

There’s other great brands too, but I’m trying to keep it on the cheap here.

8

ok the iGREEN I have heard is good, but is not so good in the +5v rail section or something. Will it handle this: (What i hope my PC specs on this PC will be one day :slight_smile: )

Athlon 64 3200+ clocked at 2.41GHz from 2.0GHz
nforce3 board
geforce 7800gs agp 512mb
3 IDE hard drives + 1 sata
2 CD/DVD drives
2048mb RAM in 4 sticks of 512s
floppy and card reader drives

I heard somewhere that 5V rail is for USB. I plan to use 6-8 USB devices like
USB modem, 2 controllers, mouse n keyboard, nokia phone usb connector, usb mic. and a usb webcam.

will the 600watt version of the iGREEN handle the usb devices and my “future upgraded” system?

THANKS :smiley:

9

Yeah. I don’t know if I’d look to run a pair of 8800GTX’s in SLI with it, but excluding a beastly system upgrade, it should hold you. CPU’s draw off the +12V, and the RAM and AGP draw off the +3.3V. PCIe cards and SATA drives run off the +12V as well.

10

so is that a yes to the above question?

11

Yes. The iGreen 600 will be more than enough for your needs.

12

orite, i have just tried unpluggin my 2nd hard drive and dvd drive so all i have connected is my main sata HDD and the fans, i still get crashes, im suspecting the graphic card, so im gna swap it, and if it works fine in mine and mine works badly in my mum n dads, we know

13

Yup. Definitely make sure something else isn’t causing the problem. A better PSU can help, but only if your current one is the problem.

14

right, have replaced the thermal grease underneath my heatsink on the card, and it still shuts off. The previous thermal grease had gone pink and solid :S

I tried my mum n dads FX 5700 yesterday, and it didnt crash or anything, it was fine. I tried it for 30-40 mins pure gaming, crap perfomance due to the card, but it didn’t shut off at all. I think I have found the graphic card is actually damaged.

maybe i should get an agp x1950 … when i have a little more money and i have bought the 600watts iGREEN. I have seen the results of these cards, they are the same price as geforce 7800gs but have more pipelines and are much more powerful.

15

ok, today I did a streight swap with my dad.

I swapped my 6600 for his FX 5700 and my 2 x 512mbs for his 2 x 256mbs. The reason is, that his board only has 2 mem slots, and mine has 4 :smiley:

Don’t worry, he isn’t conning me that easy.

He agreed to pay towards me new RAM and graphics card.

My 6600 works fine in his PC, i did 3dmark 2006 4 times in his PC and it shut mine down when i clicked to load up the test, just as it was loading, hmmm. Maybe its being picky, never come accross a GFX card taht is picky, mind I have had a DVD ROM drive that did not work in mine at all properly, but works a charm in my dads PC, maybe its down to my EPoX motherboard, and he has a well known make one, MSI.

This seems to have solved the problem anyway, new card (well, its old really, its an FX5700 hehe) anyhoo, i am strongly thinking about a 600 Watt iGREEN from coolermaster and a x1950 AGP version from ATi and Saphire, the 512mb one.

But just one question, the RAM I gave my dad was DDR 400, both of them, these are both kingstons and they run at DDR 333. If I buy 2GB of DDR 400, 2 x 1GBs, as you know, it will clock down to DDR 333 also, would it be worth taking out the dual 256s at that point, due to perfomance loss, or will I be OK for gaming with 2.5GB RAM but running at DDR 333? I will mark this as solved in a few days when i have absolutely tested this PC, its fine so far :smiley:

cheers for the help, and keep em comin :smiley:

16

Here’s the illustration I use for RAM:

RAM speed ratings are like tire speed ratings in that they indicate the maximum speed. A tire rated at 150MPH will work fine at 40MPH. The same is true with RAM.

17

would any1 reccommend a Coolermaster iGRENN 600Watts and 2GB RAM from Samsung (2 x 1GB) and a x1950 in AGP with 512mb texture memory

18

Samsung makes pretty good stuff, and I’ve had good luck with Samsung RAM chips. I’ve probably not used Samsung branded sticks, but their memory chips are good stuff. The Radeon X1950Pro is likely the fastest solution you’re going to get for AGP.

As shown before, the iGreen looks to provide solid performance, so it’s recommended on that level. The downside is that it’s not been a very popular PSU, so I haven’t really heard much from the user end.

19

Right, sorry about my long absence hehe, anyhoo, I am going to save up and get basically a new PC

I want a 64 bit vista ready gaming PC with another hard drive with XP Pro 32 bit on. I want to play the new “Games for windows” and ones that I can play xbox 360 users with. I do have an xbox 360 but won’t be getting live for a year, due to redecorating and it needs to get wired up (I hate wireless)

Anyhow, may get an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (Maybe a 5200+ as the specs are same apart from clock speed), ummm 2GB of RAM, maybe 4GB if I need to upgrade and a single 8800GTS, don’t think an SLi setup would be too ideal due to CPu bottleneck

Power supply wise I am getting a 700Watt OCZ GameXtreem that I want to re-use on my future PC, I have heard reallly good things about them.

Anyway, back to my original question, I think my motherboard is F**KD. I cant be arsed replacing any of this PC, I will just get a new build in a few months. Cheers for all your help.

NOTE TO ANYONE ELSE WITH THIS PROBLEM:

The chances are it is your board, I tried replacing graphic card, RAM, cutting down PSu to minimal required things in PC (e.g. unplugging optical drives, additional hard drives etc. and stopped overclockin CPu, nothing.)

********* UPDATE ************

Right it wasnt my motherboard, it was my power supply, it was only giving 5V thru the 12V connector, I tried a 4pin molex converter to 4 pin 12v, the problem got worse. Thats what you get for buying cheap power supplies.

Anyone else with this problem, I spent 3 weeks to find it was the power supply. Go to your BIOS or use speedfan and check your voltages