[zmeiaspas]

So when I was looking for a job I was staying at a friend's house so I unplugged my desktop and let it sit in the corner. 2 months later I found a job, got a new place, moved in at my new place and decided to turn the computer on. Everything worked fine except the machine would turn off after 1-2 hours. No errors, no freezing, no blue screens, nothing. It would just switch off as if someone pulled the power cord. I thought, hey, it may be overheating. So I left the case open, made sure all the fans were working (power supply, case, CPU, video card, etc) and even installed a little piece of software that just confirmed that all components are at normal operating temperature.

I then thought the problem could be with windows itself. So I left the computer standing at the logon screen but it would still turn off after a while. Due to the lack of any bluescreen errors, windows errors, bios errors, image/picture erros and weird lines on the screen I figured the hardware should all be ok.

So that left me with either something disconnected/came loose during the move, faulty power supply, faulty cable or faulty house power grid (my new place is in a pretty old house). I switched the cable with my monitor's and it still turned off. I opened up the case, cleaned off some dust and made sure all cables are properly hooked up. Turned it on and bam - off it goes a couple of hours later (again - not shutting down - just turning off as if someone pulled the plug)

Today I decided I was going to test the power supply by bringing my machine to my friend's house and hooking it up with his power supply to see if there would be any difference. So before I went there I decided to turn my computer on for the last time just to verify it's still broken. The damn thing works fine now and it's still hooked to the same outlet, using the same cables and the same power supply.

So now I'm a little confused. My friend told me cameras and laptops have some sort of humidity-protection. That makes perfect sense for a camera or a laptop that are more prone to accidents but a desktop that I built myself from new egg (i.e. no special brand name or anything like that)??? It's just a weird coincidence that my computer worked fine till May and then decided to stop working from July till now. In other words it wasn't working when outside was boiling hot and extremely humid. It got colder a couple of days ago and the pc works properly now ... just the way it used to work in May and before.

What do you guys think could be causing that?

 

[zmeiaspas]

Ok I woke up this morning and it was off again :ar:chair:brick

:comp

Took it about 12 hours to turn off this time. Wtf srsly :a2

 

[Baatfam]

Last time I had one do that it was the power supply...

 

[Tripped1]

It could be over heating.

Look is adminstrative tasks at the system logs and find out why its shutting down. If it over heated then there will be a message of some sort that the BIOS killed the computer if it is a power supply it will be normal message traffic.

 

[maci4life]

it could also be the switch on the case. i had a similiar problem with a computer where the switch was faulty.

windows xp also has a safety option where if there's an error, that it will automatically force a reboot. you may want to turn that off to see if that affects it.

 

[zmeiaspas]

It could be over heating.

Look is adminstrative tasks at the system logs and find out why its shutting down. If it over heated then there will be a message of some sort that the BIOS killed the computer if it is a power supply it will be normal message traffic.

It's normal message traffic. Last message before I turned it on today was from 5pm yesterday ... it worked another 10 hours before it died with no error/warning messages.

Hmm at least I know for sure it's not overheating (phew). I guess I'll bring the pc to my friend's house and let it run for a day or so and see what happens. If it doesn't go off - I'll buy a UPS. If it still goes off, I'll put his power supply in (we have the same power supplies and almost identical rigs in general so I can swap any part I like) just to confirm everything works fine with his. I'll then order a new one.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[PorkCereal]

I had a simular problem with new comp just built w/ vista 64. Was pissing me off cuz it would lock up or reboot for no reason. I did 2 things all at once and it seemed to fix it.

1. Make sure your memory is running at optimum speeds. Mine were set wrong for specs of the memory.

2. Update your bios to a more current version if available.

amd phenom2 X3 720 BE
gtx 260 216core
mushkin 7-7-6-18 gddr3 4gig
GIGABYTE 790x

 

[thelazyone]

dude your pc can either be dusty inside or your cpu is overheating.

 

[baldheadeddork]

Sounds a lot like a loose power connection, especially since it only started after you moved. Open the case and make sure all of the connections from the power supply are seated firmly. Don't forget to check the hard drive power plug.

Beyond that I'd start with the power supply.

 

[mbodell]

My friend had a power supply that was doing this to him. He replaced it once with the same type and it still had issues. His second one had a blown capacitor, but I think it was also putting out unstable power to the board.

He then got a corsair with higher grade capacitors (105 degree C vs the standard 85) and it has worked fine since. He also had a capacitor that was blew on his motherboard that I replaced, but I think that happened before the new power supply and was unrelated.

 

[Unbridled Rage]

Make sure that it's going off (hardware issue) and not just set to hibernate after several hours (software setting).

I see this all the time w/ laptops.

 

[Lowlypawn]

I had a similar problem, I finally tracked it down to the power supply. I figured out that if I tapped lightly on the power supply the computer would shut off. So I took apart the power supply looking for a loose wire, well after I pushed and pulled on every wire in the damn thing I couldn’t find anything wrong?!?!?! So I put it back together and guess what… It never shut off again ! So somehow I fixed it.

On another computer I built (I build all my own computers) I kept upgrading stuff (video card, HD ECT) until my power supply finally said no more! So also check if maybe your power supply is being overworked and or is undersized.

The last thing I can think of is the that outlet is a little worn out and by simply unplugging and plugging back in you have a little better connection this time.

Well that’s all I can think of, good luck. .